CARL'S TOUR 



IN 



MAIN STREET 



" Let then what hath been, be. It boots not here 
To palliate misdoings. 'T-were less toil 
To build Colossus than to hew a hill 
/nto a statue. Hail f and farewell all !" 







WORCESTER MASS 
SANFORD AND DAVIS 

MDCCCLXXXIX 









Press of Sanford & Davis. yr^,,^^/, ^^z/^-^,,. 



NOTE. 

"Carl's Tour in Main Street" was the joint 
production of John S. C. Knowlton and Clarendon 
Wheelock. The latter, familiar from early life with 
Worcester men, localities and affairs, supplied the 
incidents from his store of recollection ; and Mr. 
Knowlton rendered them into the charming and 
quainth'-phrased story, imparting to it the quality and 
interest of a veritable narrative. The " Tour" was 
published in numbers in the IJ^orcesfer PaUadlu77t 
(of which Mr. Knowlton was the founder, and until 
his death, the editor) of 1855 ; and was by request 
reprinted in that paper in 1857-58, and again in 1874. 

In preparing this fourth edition of "■ Carl's Tour" 
for the types, I have corrected some obvious errors, 



and have added a few references for the benefit of 
those who are not familiar with time's changes in 
Worcester. Although the statements made are not 
always in strict accordance with historical accuracy, 
I have thought it best not to change the narrative in 
any essential particular ; nor have I availed myself of 
the privilege to add notes to an extent that would en- 
cumber the text, most of which is self-explanatory. 

The frontispiece engraving represents a view of 
the north entrance to the village of Worcester in 1839, 
from Lincoln street, looking west and south over 
Lincoln square. It is enlarged from a drawing made 
by J. W. Barber, and printed in his " Historical Col- 
lections of Massachusetts." 

Franklin P. Rice. 
May, i88g. 



CHAPTER I. 

Mr. Editor : I never go far from home ; but I 
remember that about twenty years ago I made a tour 
through our Main street. It was a bright autumnal day, 
in the good month of October, when my venerable father 
— peace to his ashes, and forever green be his memory 
— took down his hat from the peg on which it was his 
custom to hang it, and said to me : " Come, Carl, let 
us go to the Common, and see the Cattle Show." In 
less than six minutes I was six inches taller ; and wash- 
ing my face, as all travellers should when setting out 
on a long journey, and taking down my cap from the 
peg on which it hung, below my father's, I put it on 
my head, and w^e sallied forth, hand in hand, to wit- 
ness a Worcester County Carnival. 

Our house was not far from Lincoln Square, At 
that time the Square retained, more than it now does, 



2 »CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

the character it once had as the centre of trade, of 
fashion, and of life in our then quiet country village. 
There were five roads that then led out of the Square. 
One of them w^as Lincoln street, which was then, as 
it long had been, the great travelled road to Boston, 
and over which run daily innumerable stages, and 
baggage wagons, and pleasure carriages, making their 
way between the metropolis, the Connecticut valley, 
and the country beyond. It was the old mail road, 
on which the mails used, in the olden time, as my 
father informed me, to be carried from Boston to 
Philadelphia, and back in three weeks. It was on 
Lincoln street, he also told me — and he pointed out 
the place — where the Hancock Arms Tavern stood ; 
nearly opposite where the Gas Works now are. It 
was the resort, in olden times of the wits and wags and 
merry topers of the "north end;" and the headquar- 
ters of the army of insurgents in the Shays rebellion. 
It had probably outlived its day, and been supplanted 
by a more modern rival ; for my father informed me 
that after standing unoccupied for several years, it was 
fired by an incendiary, and burned to the ground some 
ten years before I first attended cattle show. 

There were but few houses on Lincoln street at the 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 3 

time my memory of things begins, and none of the 
streets in existence that now lead out of it at right 
angles. It was lined on both sides, mainly, by the 
splendid farm of Gov. Lincoln, senior ; and his man- 
sion house stood a quarter of a mile out of the Square, 
on the west side of the street. The grounds about it 
w^ere the finest in Worcester. Attached to it was a 
splendid garden ; and in the rear a beautiful pond, 
which the hand of improvement has sadly marred in 
these later da}'s ; and in front was the fine farm, extend- 
ing half a mile to the east. Mr. Lincoln was a man 
of mark in the country. He filled the office of attorney 
general of the United States in Jefferson's cabinet, and 
lived and died a democrat. Although his house was 
a fine one in his day, and as well supplied as any in 
the country, yet he never had but one room carpeted ; 
painted board floors being thought good enough in 
those times for the best of people. I was pained, a 
few years ago, to see that house shoved ofl' its founda- 
tions, to make room for the more palace-like dwelling 
of an enterprising and wealthy mechanic. It stands 
now on the corner of Grove and Lexington streets. 
The Lincoln grounds are no longer the farm they 
w^ere when I used to run over them in my boyhood- 



4 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

Streets have been cut through them ; trees have fallen 
before the axe ; and a railroad has usurped one side of 
the pond, and robbed it of the quietude that once made 
its banks a charming sylvan retreat. 

Higher up Lincoln street, and north of the Lincoln 
mansion, was the fine old country seat of the Paine 
family. My father told me that it had never changed 
within his knowledge. It was Timothy Paine, if I 
remember rightly, that first planted himself there. He 
held various public offices, and before the Revolution 
he was appointed a Councillor to the royal governor. 
The people took a more patriotic view of the matter 
than he did, gathered around his house in great num- 
bers, and thus induced him to relinquish the appoint- 
ment. My father said that he never knevs^ Esq. Paine ; 
but that he knew his son. Dr. William Paine, who 
opened the first apothecary shop in Worcester ; that he 
was in England purchasing goods when the war broke 
out, and for some reason, which I do not now remem- 
ber, he did not return home, but joined the British 
army in the capacity of a surgeon. After the war was 
over, however, he returned home, and in some way 
regained posession of his confiscated estate, which has 
been in the Paine family ever since, — a part of which 



CAKI. S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 5 

is the splendid liill, now covered with wood, which 
lies east of the house, and will one day be a fortune of 
itself. 

On our way to the Cattle vShow, ni} father pointed 
out the spot where the hrst saw and grist mill was 
built by the first settlers in Worcester. It was back 
of the residence of the late Madame Salisbury, near 
where stands the freight depot of the Nashua railroad. 
A dam was there thrown across Bimeleck, or Fort 
River, as Mill Brook was then called ; the water set- 
ting back and covering the low ground far up the 
stream, and coming, my father said, quite up to the 
travelled way of Lincoln street. He said that he had 
heard that there was a garrison near by, to defend the 
mills from attack by the Indians ; but he was not cer- 
tain of the truth of it. 

At the time of which I am speaking, another road 
came into the Square from the east. It was then a 
turnpike, running from Worcester to Boston, straight 
over hills and valleys, rivers and ponds, and turn- 
ing neither to the right nor the left. It ran over the 
north wing of Chandler hill, and by the side of Blad- 
der Pond ; and now bears the more fanciful name of 
Belmont street. 



6 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

Salisbury street — the old road to Holden — led out 
of the Square in a northwest direction ; and Main street 
and Summer street in a southerly direction, diverging 
as they extended. Union and Highland streets were 
not laid out. Grove, Concord, Lexington, Prescott 
and Otis streets were then a cow pasture. The beau- 
tiful sheet of water, now known as Salisbury Pond, 
had no existence twenty years ago. The land it covers 
was then a meadow, with a brook meandering through 
it, over which I have crossed many a time, in my play, 
on a rail, where tlie water is now the deepest. The 
dam, which is now a part of Grove street, had not 
then been built ; and I desire here to thank the city 
government of the last year for the erection of a sub- 
stantial sidewalk of timber and plank, on the edge of 
the dam, which adds so inuch to the convenience and 
comfort of the thousands, who, in pleasant weather, — 
especially on Sunday afternoons — walk through Grove 
street, to visit our beautiful Rural Cemetery, w^here so 
many of the friends of the present generation of the 
residents of Worcester rest from life's turmoils, and 
where they will one day be joined by those they have 

left behind. 

Yours, ever, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER II. 

Mr. Editor : In speaking of Lincoln street in 
my last letter, I forgot to mention that my father told 
me, when we were on our way to the Cattle Show, 
that there was once a Scotch Church in Worcester. It 
consisted, he said, of a little colony of Scotchmen, 
who came over early, and located themselves around 
the head waters of Bimeleck. They were an indus- 
trious and frugal people, who, if let alone, w ould have 
been a valuable addition to the settlement ; for it was 
the Scots, my father said, who first cultivated the pota- 
toe in New England ; spun flax with the foot wheel, 
and wove it into linen cloth, and showed themselves 
adepts in other useful arts. But there was a prejudice 
against them, which lost no opportunity to give itself 
an airing. Having their own religious opinions and 
attachments, the Scotch settlers in Worcester desired 



b CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

to worship by themselves ; and they, therefore, under- 
took the erection, for themselves, of a meeting house. 
My father pointed out, as near as he was able, the 
spot where they raised the frame of a wooden church. 
My recollection of the place is not very distinct at this 
day ; but it was near the top of the hill in Lincoln 
street, — a little north of the Paine house, and in a 
position to command a pleasant prospect of the sur- 
rounding country. I regret for the reputation of the 
'* rude forefathers of the hamlet," that the frugal and 
pious Scotchmen were not allowed to enjoy their free- 
dom of conscience without molestation. But such 
was not the case. My father told me that before the 
Scotch meeting house was completed, the rest of the 
people in tlie settlement rose in a body — respectable 
gentlemen and all — went to the churcii, under cover of 
the darkness of night, and razed the building to the 
ground, not leaving one stick upon another. The 
poor Scotch settlers " pulled up stakes," and found 
homes in other localities. 

It was about twenty years ago, you will remember, 
that I told you my father said to me, one pleasant 
October day: "Come, Carl, let us go and see the 
Cattle Show," and that he took down his hat — it was 



carl's tour in main street. 9 

a broad-brim — and I my cap, from the pegs on which 
it was our custom to hang them ; and we sallied forth 
on our tour through Main street, from the North end 
to the South end. At that time, as I said before, there 
were live roads — there are seven now — running out of 
Lincoln Square, which lies at the North end of Main 
street, and across which runs the ancient Bimeleck — 
the modern Mill Brook — under a stone arch bridge, 
as wide as the Square is wide. In my boy days, it 
was my custom to admire that bridge, it was so roomy, 
and nothing pleased me more than to see the stage- 
men drive their teams into the water at the North end, 
and wash their coaches and refresh their horses, after 
finishing their trip for the day from Boston on the 
east, or Springfield, or Northampton, or Hartford on 
the west. It seemed to my boy eyes, that the coach- 
man who held the reins and cracked the whip for a 
team of four, was the most exalted man in the nation. 
Certain it is that I always made my bow to the coach- 
man, instead of those who rode behind him. There 
was music in his post-horn, which the steam whistle 
does not begin to rival. 

At the time I went through Lincoln Square, on my 
way with my father to the Cattle Show^, its appearance 



lO CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

was very different from what it now is. The Salisbury 
mansion stood then as it now stands, except that 
shortly afterwards I was astonished one day to see the 
workmen put screws under it, and give it an elevation 
of some half a dozen feet from the ground more than 
it had before. On the opposite side of the brook, 
where stands now the passenger station house of the 
Worcester and Nashua railroad, stood at that time, and 
for years afterw^ards, a one-story wooden building, 
which, my father told me, was the store in which the 
elder Mr. Salisbury carried on, for a long time, an 
extensive trade with Worcester and the country around, 
keeping, as was the custom of the time, a supply 
of West India and dry goods, and laying the foundation 
of that ample fortune which makes, at this day, the 
Salisbury estate one of the richest in the country, out 
of the large cities. I can but think, however, that 
something of success in this instance was owing to 
the habits of economy and frugality, which marked 
the early life of that gentleman; and which it would 
be better for the young men of to-day, who are in busi- 
ness, if they would study and imitate. My father said 
he knew him well, that he was always behind his 
counter, or in his little counting room, giving the 



CARL S TOUK IN iMAIN STREET. I I 

most scrupulous attention to every matter of business, 
no matter how inconsiderable, and retiring at night to 
a small room connected with his store, where he slept 
as the guard of his own property. Some one has kept 
a record of the young men who have commenced life 
as dealers in dry goods, and shows the failure ot 95 
in every 100. Is it not to be attributed, in a great 
degree, to an extravagance in the way of doing busi- 
ness, and of living, which did not prevail with those 
who were the business men of half a century ago ? 

My fiither pointed out to me the place where the 
elder Daniel Waldo — father of the late Daniel Waldo 
— kept store in the revolutionary times, but it has gone 
from my memory. I remember that he said that Mr. 
Waldo owned the first chaise that run in Worcester 
and that as he came originally from Boston, and was 
so extravagant as to ride in a chaise, his neighbors 
looked upon him as somewhat of an aristocrat. He 
told me also, an anecdote of what a narrow escape that 
gentleman run in the time of the Shays rebellion. It 
was cold and blustering weather, the Shays men were 
quartered at the Hancock Arms hotel, where the alarm 
was given that many of the soldiers had been poisoned 
by some unseen hand ; that many were sick, and per- 



12 CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

haps all of them would die. The surgfeon of the regi- 
ment made an examination, and discovered that some 
deadly drug had been mingled with the sugar which 
the soldiers used, to sweeten their toddy. It was 
ascertained that the sugar had been bought at Mr. 
Waldo's store, and as he was not in favor of the rebel- 
lion, it was believed that he had purposely put poison 
into the sugar to destroy the rebellionists. An officer 
with a file of soldiers was sent to arrest the offender. 
They marched him to the Hancock Arms, where it 
was proposed to subject him to what is now denomi- 
nated Lynch law. But execution was delayed until 
some one or more soldiers should die of the poison. 
In the mean time the discovery was made that the poi- 
sonous substance in the toddy was nothing but yellow 
snuff, which by some accident had been dropped into 
the sugar, and the offender was discharged upon the 
payment of a fine of a barrel of rum. 

Twenty years ago, when I set out on my travels, 
what is now the Nashua Hotel w^as a two-story public 
house, standing several rods east of its present location. 
It has since been moved, and modernized and renova- 
ted, I hope, in more ways than one. It was a good 
inn for the accommodation of beasts^ but a terrific 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. I3 

place for men. It was a "rum tavern" in its most 
fiery signification. It had a long piazza in front, and 
there sat the signs., from morning to night, of the busi- 
ness carried on within ; a blotched and bloated row of 
frail mortality, the sight of which always made the 
marrow^ creep in my bones whenever I had occasion 
to run by it. Some of those poor unfortunates I knew 
by sight. The sods of the valley now press upon their 
lips ; or, I doubt not, they would speak, with terrible 
earnestness, to every young man, the burning words, 
" Touch not the drunkard's cupf^ 

" It weaves the winding sheet of souls, 

And lays them in the urn of everlasting sleep." 

In this connection, I am reminded of a man by the 
name of Pete Johnso^i., who, I doubt not, is remem- 
bered by many of your city readers. Years ago, Pete 
kept a rum shop on the east side of Lincoln Square, 
in the basement of the brick building now occupied 
by the Washington Engine Company, — and a first-rate 
fire company it is too. I used to be pleased to hear 
the fire bells, for, boy as I was, I was sure to steal 
away from home and "run" with that company to 



14 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

fires. There was In it an excitement that was ahnost 
fun. Pete was a great talker, and a great wag. I 
believe he was a native of Worcester ; but I know^ not 
what became of him. He had always his story to tell, 
and I would gfo without my dinner anv time for the 
sake of listening to one of Pete's stories. Temperance 
and temperance men were never favorites with him. 
One of his stories was this (though I am aware that I 
cannot tell it with any of the grace with which he told 
it) : "When they were building the Western Rail- 
road to Albany (said he) I went up into York state, 
and hired a small tavern, at no great distance from a 
hard-work in the track. I kept the house solely for 
the accommodation of travellers^ you know. Yet I 
was very much annoyed by the Irish workmen upon 
the railroad coming to get rum to drink. It worried 
ine to see them waste their money so ; but yet as they 
would waste It, I thought I might as well have It as 
somebody else. And as I was anxious for their good, 
I hit upon a plan, which was alike beneficial to them 
and to me. They would come to my house so drunk 
that I did not dare refuse them what they called for ; 
and as they called for drink after drink, I put in more 



CARJ^'S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 15 

and more zvater^ until ^ hi the end^ they had drunk 
so much water that they went away quite sober.'' 
Pete was a philosopher in dram drinking, and at the 
same time had an eye to the improvement of his 
finances. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER III. 

Mr. Edito7' : At the close of my last letter we 
had made our entrance into Lincoln Square on our 
way to Main street. Crowds of people were passing 
along in the same direction. My father told me to 
note them well, and see how great was the diversity of 
character and conduct, " for (said he) it is such a 
crowd as you will see no other day in the year, what- 
ever may be the holiday." I did observe the crowd, 
and I have not failed to obey the injunction every year 
since. There were old men and young men, striplings 
and boys, old ladies and young ladies, misses and girls ; 
many riding and many walking, high crown and low 
crown, broad brim and narrow brim, long waist and 
short waist, the modest cottage head gear and the 
flaunting flare up, the long skirt and the short skirt, 
the poor and the rich, the substantial yeoman, and the 



carl's tour in main street. 17 

vulgar cockney, and last, though not least, a caravan 
of pedlers, all going to see and enjoy the Farmer's 
Annual Holiday ; and perhaps w^ith no higher ambi- 
tion in many of them, than honestly, or dishonestly, to 
" turn a penny." 

I w^as on tiptoe with the multitude to see the sights, 
but when we got into the Square, my father chilled 
me with the remark, " Come, Carl, go with me into 
the jail. I must see my old friend M." "Why, what 
is he there for? What has he been doing, that they 
shut him up ? Is he a rogue ? " Such were the ques- 
tions that I put in quick succession. "No (was the 
answer), he has only been unfortunate. He owes 
money which he cannot pay." In my simplicity I 
asked the question, " And how can he pay it by being 
in prison?" It's the law," was the ready reply. 

We called at the tavern, kept by Mr. Bellows. It 
stood on the south side of the Square, at the corner ot 
Summer street, wdiere now stands the large brick 
building that was erected for the accommodation of 
the Worcester Branch Railroad. The house was 
crowded with people ; there \vas no Maine law^ in 
those days ; but my father found the turnkey, and we 
went to the jail. It was a large stone building, w^hich 
2 



i8 carl's tour in main street. 

stood a little way from the house, near where Union 
street now enters the Square. Massive iron doors 
were opened one after another, with huge keys, and 
we climbed up stone steps after stone steps until 
w^e reached the third story. " Those rooms below 
(said my father), are for the criminals, these for the 
poor debtors." Another lock w^as turned, the iron 
door creaked on its hinges, we were ushered into M's 
cell, and the door shut and locked upon us. " Come 
in half an hour," said my father to the turnkey; and 
this was my first half hour in prison. I have been in 
jails, and houses of correction, and state prisons, since 
that time, but never w^ith such emotions as moved my 
inmost heart on that occasion. 

Mr. M. (and his image haunts me) was a man ot 
middle age, and of middling stature. He gave my 
father a cordial welcome. He looked pensive. For 
furniture there was a small bed on one side of the cell, 
two chairs, and a small unpainted table, on which 
were two or three books and a newspaper. " I was 
looking over my book of accounts (said he) as you 
entered, to see if there is anything to prevent my taking 
the oath. I could pay all my debts if men would pay 
me what they owe me ; but if they will not, or can 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. I9 

not, then I must suffer the consequences." I was then 
taking mv first lesson in the philosophy of the relation 
of debtor and creditor, and have since found it a circu- 
lar chain, the links of which are all dependent upon 
each other. They talked fast. My father w^as more 
cheerful in jail than out. M. smiled occasionally a 
sardonic smile, and I busied myself in looking out, as 
well as I could, at the grated window, and in examin- 
ing every nook and crevice, scratch and mark, upon 
the forbiddino- walls and dirtv ceilins:. The turnkev 
came back and opened the door. I started out. Mr. 
M. patted me on my head, and made some remark 
which I do not now reinember ; and as I looked back 
I saw my father take something from his pocket and 
give to him ; but what it was I did not see, and he 
would not tell me, though I often asked him the 
question. 

When we passed down stairs, and had reached the 
lower floor, my father halted for a moment at the door 
of a cold and dreary cell. "This (said he), was for 
many years the miserable cell of the howling, naked, 
filthy maniac, Peter Sibley, of Sutton, who was tried 
for murder, and acquitted by the jury on the ground 
of insanity. The boys would come under his window 



20 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

to ' stir him up,' as they said, that they might hear his 
insane ravings. It ^vas for him, and such as he, that 
the State built its Lunatic Hospitals ; and he has been 
taken out and carried there." Years afterwards, when 
I came to understand the subject better, I saw, in one 
of the wards of the hospital, the "howling, naked, 
filthy maniac," transformed into the quiet, neat, and 
w^ell-dressed patient, whom no one would mistrust for 
an insane man, were it not for the expression of the 
countenance, which is as plainly th^e language of 
insanity, to one who can read it, as though it were 
written in letters and words upon the pallid brow. 
Sibley lived incurably insane, and died but a little 
while ago, having been in confinement well nigh 
forty years. 

When Ave had reached the street in front of the jail 
my father turned round and surveyed it with his eye, 
letting fall some remark about the "progress of civili- 
zation," which I did not fully hear nor comprehend. 
"Your grandfather told me (said he), that when the 
county was incorporated, about a hundred years ago 
(it was in 1731), they built a cage in the back part ot 
the Jennison house, just south of the Unitarian meeting 
house ; but that in the course of a few months they 



CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 31 

moved the cage to the house of Mr. Daniel Heywood, 
where now stands the new City Hall.* A jail was 
built, as soon it could be done conveniently, north of 
the Square, which lasted about twenty years, when a 
larger one was built near by, and after about thirty 
years more this one was erected." He said that he 
remembered well wdien it was built ; that it was one 
of the first buildings of stone erected in the common- 
w^ealth, and drew from every one the remark that "■ it 
would last and serve the county for hundreds of 
years." In less than half a century it had been leveled 
w^ith the ground, as unsuited to the wants of a grow- 
ing community, and not one stone ^vas left upon 
another. The little " rum tavern" took its departure 
about the same time, and on the spot where it stood 
the enterprising firm of Joseph Walker & Sonsf now 
manufacture, daily, hundreds of pairs of boots, with- 
out the help of the "evil spirits," or the toddy stick, 
that danced attendance on their revels. A railroad nov^^ 
occupies the ground betvv^een where once stood the inn 
and the jail, and over it run hourly, trains of cars that 
never entered into the dreams of the thousands of 



*Now Bay State House. 
tNow Dean Building(?). 



32 CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

*'poor debtors," whose limited occupation it had been 
to look out through the grates, and gaze, in vain 
regrets, upon a patch, here and there, of blue sky. 

"I pity him, poor fellow (said my father, as he 
stood looking up to the grated window) but I cannot 
help him." " Why can you not help him ? " inquired 
I with innocent simplicity. " Because, my son, I 

have no money to spare. It takes all I can get to 

(I lost the rest of the sentence) and I must be just 
before I can be generous. I must try and keep out of 
debt, or I may have to go to Jail myself, and you will 
then come and pity me in my cell, as you have now 
pitied Mr. M." 

We started along towards Main street. Between 
the jail and Mill Brook stood a two-story wooden 
building, on the lower floor of which our present 
worthy Register of Probate* had his law office, and 
over it was a small tenement, wdiich was reached by 
a flight of stairs out of doors, standing within a few 
feet of the water. We had just entered upon the 
bridge, when I heard the door of that house open, and 
looking round, over my left shoulder, I saw a [man 
stagger out of the door, and pitch head foremost from 

*Charles G. Prentiss, Esq. 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 23 

tlie top to the bottom of the stairs. "Oh. the poor 
di"unkard," said my father, "that's the end of him." 
We turned about and walked quickly to the spot. His 
wife came running dow^n the stairs. We lifted him 
up, expecting his neck was broken, or the breath 
beat out of his body, wdien he opened his eyes with 
an unearthly stare, and exclaimed, "Let me alone, I 
know w^hat I 'm about, I 've been to Cattle Show^ once, 
and I'm going again, so hands off!" His grief-stricken 
wife looked up as if oppressed with the' consciousness 
that this world had no holiday for her, and with the 
remark, " I'll take care of him," she thanked us for 
our kindness, and we turned away. 

Yours, ever, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER IV. 

J/r. Editor : — As we walked away from the jail, 
and crossed the bridge at Lincoln Square, my father 
remarked ; " This is not now the ' Bridge of Sighs,' 
though I think it might have been in the olden time." 
I inquired what he meant ; and he said there was once 
a "love aflair near by, which made much talk in 
the time of it." 

He said that among the Scotch settlers in Worces- 
ter, there came over an Irish family by the name of 
Rankin. They had several daughters, the youngest 
of whom was Anna. At that time there was a family 
here, very respectable for the times, by the name of 
Andrews. One of the boys was named Samuel, who 
was at the time an undergraduate in Harvard College. 
Sam. came home to spend a vacation, and while at 
home he saw Anna Rankin ; and taking a liking to 



carl's tour in main street. 25 

*^her neck," which, like Kathleen Bawn's was " so 
soft, and so smooth, without freckle or speck," he 
'' fell in love," as the novel-writers say. He forth- 
with threw Latin and Greek to the dogs ; made love 
to Anna, and in due time married her ; and, purchas- 
ino- a farm down on the west side of Qiiinsigamond 
Lake, he settled down and became an industrious and 
frugal yeoman. In that occupation he prospered so 
w^ell that in a few years he quitted his flirm, and 
moved into the village, and built him a house on the 
very spot where the stone jail was subsequently 
erected. Afterwards he built him a larger and better 
house on ground now occupied by the l)lock of brick 
houses opposite the court house. Father and mother 
both died, leaving an only daughter, named Anna, 
after her mother, with an estate that made her the 
principal heiress of Worcester in those times. 

In the rear of the Andrews house, Tim. Bigelow 
had a blacksmith's shop, where he blew the bellows, 
heated and hammered the iron, shod the horses and 
oxen, and mended the ploughs and chains for the 
farmers of the country about him. Now Tim. was as 
*' bright as a button," more than six feet high ; straight 
and handsome, and walked upon the earth with a 
natural air and grace that was quite captivating. 



26 carl's tour in main street. 

Tim. saw Anna and Anna saw Tim. and they were 
well satisfied with each other. But as he was then 
" nothing but Tim. Bigelow, the blacksmith," the 
lady's friends, whose ward she was, would not give 
their consent to a marriage. So, watching an oppor- 
tunity, the lovers mounted tieet horses and rode a 
hundred miles to Hampton, in New Hampshire, 
w^hich lies on the coast between Newburyport and 
Portsmouth, and was at that time the "Gretna Green" 
for all young men and maidens for whom "true love" 
did not "run a smooth course" in Massachusetts. 
They came back to Worcester as Mr. and Mrs. 
Timothy Bigelow. He was a man of decided talent, 
and well fitted by nature for a popular leader. AH 
the leading men of the town at that time were tories. 
He espoused the cause of the people, and soon had a 
party strong enough to control the town ; and being 
known as a patriot, he was soon recognized by Han- 
cock, Samuel Adams,- Gen. Warren, James Otis, and 
others of the patriot party throughout the Province. 
He w^as sent as a delegate from Worcester to the 
provincial _ congress ; and as captain of the Minute 
Men he led his company from Worcester to Cam- 
bridge, on the 19th of April, 1775, at the summons of 
a messenger who rode swiftly into town that day, on 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 27 

a large white horse, annoimcino^ that the war had 
begun. For a long time afterwards, (my father told 
me,) that express man was always spoken of as " death 
on a pale horse." 

If your readers will consult a history of the Revo- 
lutionary War, they will find that the blacksmith 
Bigelow soon rose to the rank of Major, and after- 
wards to that of Colonel of the r5th Massachusetts 
regiment, which was composed almost exclusively ot 
Worcester county men ; that he was at the stormmg 
of Qiiebec ; at the taking of Burgoyne ; in the terrific 
scenes of Valley Forge ; and on almost every other 
field made memorable' by the fierce conflicts of the 
revolution. When the war was over he returned 
home, his constitution shattered by hard service for 
his country ; his occupation gone ; his money matters 
in sad derangement, in consequence of that formida- 
ble depreciation of the currency, under which forty 
dollars was scarcely sufficient to pay for a pair of 
shoes ; and he died at what was long known as the 
" Bigelow Mansion" — formerly the Andrews house — 
about 65 years ago, and just after he had passed the 
50th year of his life. And thus ended the "love 
affair," which, my father said, produced a prodigious 
excitement in its day. 



28 carl's tour in main street. 

A son of Col. Bigelow bore the name of his father, 
and was for a long time a prominent lawyer at Groton 
and afterwards at Medford in Middlesex county. He 
was repeatedly elected a representative and senator in 
the general court ; was one of the governor's council ; 
ten times speaker of the house ; and was also a mem- 
ber of the famous Hartford convention. He was one 
of the wittiest men of his time ; and as a specimen of 
his wit, my father told me that he stepped into the 
house of representatives one day when Mr. Bigelow 
was in the chair. A clumsy member undertook to 
walk across the area in front of the speaker's desk, 
made a blunder, and fell at full length on the floor. 
A shout of laughter followed, in which all the mem- 
bers seemed to participate. Speaker Bigelow sprung 
upon his feet in an instant, and exclaimed in a loud 

voice: — "Order, gentlemen! Mr. has the 

floor ! " 

John P. Bigelow., formerly secretary of state, and 
recently mayor of the city of Boston, was a son — and 
Mrs. Abbott Lawrence, a daughter, of the second 
Timothy Bigelow ; and I am thinking that they have 
no occasion to be ashamed of their descent from the 
poor Irish emigrant girl, Anna Rankin. 

Thus as by an irresistible destiny, runs on the 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 29 

chain of life's changes ; Hnking on generation after 
generation, and binding together the last and the first 
of the human race. In this instance I have followed 
it through six generations. P^irst, there was the 
humble emigrant with the Scotch Presbyterians, 
James Rankin. Second, his daughter Anna, who 
married young Samuel Andrews. Third, their daugh- 
ter Anna Andrews, the heiress, who eloped with Tim. 
Bigelow, whose blacksmith's shop stood where the 
Court Mills now stand, and who figured so largely in 
the Revolution. Fourth, Timothy Bigelow, the 
younger, the lawyer and the statesman. Fifth, the 
ex-mavor ; and the wife of the millionaire who recently 
represented the United vStates at the court of St. 
James. And sixth, the sons and the daughters, who 
if not already known to fame, may be hereafter. I 
vs^ish I knew as well the history of all the early settlers 
in Worcester. It would give me pleasure to jot it 
down. But perhaps the remark of my father about 
the " love affair " gave me an interest in this piece ot 
family history greater than I could feel in any other. 
We are rarely masters of our own will. 

Yours truly, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER V. 

Mr. Editor : — I fear that some of your readers 
may be afflicted with the idea that they may not live 
long enough to see t/ie other end of my tour. If so, 
let me remind them that Rome was not built in a day ; 
that the siege of Troy lasted ten years ; and that all 
great undertakings require time — much time. 

The Antiquarian Hall was an object of interest, 
twenty years ago, to every visitor in Lincoln Square ; 
especially if he had a taste for the elevated pleasures 
and refinements of life, and could see something to 
live for more ennobling than the mere getting of 
money. The Hall was built about thirty-five years 
ago by the notable Isaiah Thomas. In the course ot 
a long life, devoted to the printing and publishing of 
books, he had accumulated a great variety of books, 
pamphlets, newspapers, etc., ; and he conceived the 



carl's tour in main street, 31 

idea of an institution that might be of great utility as 
a depository of the facts of past times, and the material 
for the future to illustrate American history. He 
founded the American Antiquarian Society ; gave to 
it all his valuable collections ; and built the Hall, and 
gave it, with the land which it occupied, to the 
Society. A few years afterwards, as my father 
informed me, the Society found itself so well prospered 
that it was obliged to enlarge its accommodations by 
adding wings to the main building. The location 
of the building was found in time not to be a good 
one for the preservation of books ; and the Society has 
built a new Hall on the west side of the Square ; and 
the old hall is now temporarily occupied by the 
Worcester Academy, since the sale of its lands and 
buildings as too valuable to be occupied for educa- 
tional purposes. 

In my boy days it was always a pleasure to me to 
stroll into the Antiquarian Hall ; to see its alcoves 
well lined with books, though I could not conceive it 
possible that any one could ever think of reading 
them ; to look by the hour at the multitude of little 
portraits that hung in the gallery ; and to see the 
Indian relics and other antiquities, and especially that 



32 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

modern antique the leviathan Jewsharp, which was 
presented to some odd fellows in Worcester by some 
merry wags on the Kennebec. But the chief j^leasure 
of my visits always was to see the librarian himself; 
who could be man or boy at a moment's warning ; 
was always on a level with either ; had ever something 
to say that it was a pleasure to me to listen to ; and 
abounded with humor that oozed out even at his 
fingers' ends. Fond as I then was of new books, I 
could not understand his passion for old ones, and I 
never left him without receiving his paternal blessing, 
and a most importunate injunction: — " If you find 
any old books^ bring them to me ! " 

I remember an incident. I was at play in the 
Square one pleasant summer afternoon when there 
drove into the capacious yard of the Lincoln Square 
Hotel — in front of the house — a man in a wagon, 
who was carrying an ass to market. He loosed the 
horse from the wagon, and put him in the stable to 
feed, leaving the ass standing up on all fours in the 
wagon. I had never seen an ass before, and I walked 
about and surveyed him at every point. Presently I 
saw the librarian and another gentleman, smaller than 
he was, come out of the Hall, and walk rapidly 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 33 

towards the wagon. As they came up they both burst 
into a loud laugh. They walked around the wagon 
time and again, and looked at the animal before and 
behind, and the more they walked and looked the 
more they laughed. 

" Christopher," said the small man, " I'm going to 
speak to him ! " 

" That's right, William," said the librarian, " but 
I don't believe he will condescend to make you any 
answer ! " 

Taking off his hat, and making a low bow to the 
ass, the man of small stature said to him in the most 
respectful manner : 

"How does your majest}'.'' If there is anything 
in the power of your humble servant to do for the 
comfort of your majesty, your majesty will please 
to command his most ready service." 

No answer. 

'* Perhaps," said William, " I have mistaken your 
character. Although your ass-ship looks very much 
like a king, it is possible, after all, that your reverence 
is the more respectable personage of a professional 
gentleman ; a reverend doctor of divinity, on your 
way to exchange pulpits with some brother ; a presi- 

3 



34 carl's tour in main street. 

dent or professor of a college, making a tour In a 
college vacation ; or possibly a judge, riding his circuit. 
What, not a word In reply ? Then I am most griev- 
ously disappointed and mortified, that your honor will 
not condescend to si3eak to so humble an Individual as 
he who now addresses you. You try him, Christo- 
pher ! " 

" That I will," said the librarian, walking up to the 
ass and holding out his hand. " How do you do, 
brother — John Tail? " 

" He, he, ha, ha ! " went William ; " I should think 
vou would feel mortified yourself now, Christopher, 
to find that the ass does not condescend to know his 
.own brother before folks." 

"Brother ass!" said the librarian, "we see that 
you are ' up In the world,' and we rejoice in your 
prosperity. Perhaps you are on your way to Boston, 
to take a seat In the legislature ; or to Washington to 
become a member of congress, or president. If so, 
do not look with such indift'erence upon your lowly 
and less fortunate brothers-" 
No response from the ass. 

"You try him now, my young man," said the 
librarian to me, " and see if you can draw from him a 
specimen of his vocabulary." 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 35 

I walked up to the ass's head, patted his neck 
gently, rubbed lightly his furry ears and his velvet 
nose, and slipping my hand into my pocket I drevv^ 
therefrom a cake of gingerbread, v^hich the animal 
took and devoured with avidity. " If you want some 
more, say so," said I to the ass. And thereupon he 
opened his inouth, and let out one of his loudest brays. 
It was as fiercely loud as the screeching of the hoarsest 
steam vs^histle, and almost as sonorous as the crowding 
of a Shanghai cockerel. It seemed as though the 
librarian and his friend would have died in an ecstasy 
of humor at the exhibition. They patted the ass, and 
they patted me. They walked backward and forw^ard, 
and laughed and held their sides, until the poor ass 
seemed to be almost conscious that he had provoked 
all their inirth. 

It was not very long after this life-scene in Lincoln 
Square that I was pained one day to hear my father 
read in a newspaper that the librarian was thrown 
from the top of a stage coach, when travelling in Ohio, 
and instantly killed. His humorous, talented and 
highly intellectual friend survived him many years ; 
but his brimming cup pf genial humor had become to 
some extent embittered by those in whom he had too 
generously confided. 



36 carl's tour in main street. 

The new Antiquarian Hall has been the subject of 
sharp criticism. It certainly has an odd exterior ; but 
I am not connoisseur enough to decide whether it 
violates the rules of architectural propriety. Its 
interior is very handsome and convenient ; and I am 
charitable enough to the Society to entertain the belief 
that it suffers more from its location than from any 
fault in its architectural design. Its site is too elevated 
above the surrounding grounds. It would look far 
better if it stood upon a plain, embowered with trees 
and shrubbery. As it is, one looks at it now as a lover 
upon his knees looks in the face of his mistress ; and 
though I never served on a nunnery committee, I think 
you will not get so good a view of the lady's counte- 
nance when looking up at an angle of forty-five 
degrees as you do when looking her horizontally in 
the face. The site is in many respects a fine one- 
It is elevated, airy and accessible ; and resting upon 
a ledge of rocks it is beyond the reach of moisture, so 
injurious to books. Twenty years ago there stood 
upon the spot a small wooden house, even then ancient 
in appearance, which was occupied by Mr. Peter 
Williams, who had been then, my father told me, for 
a long time an attache of the Salisbury estate. 



carl's tour in main street. 37 

Venerable with age/ he is, I think, still in that 
service. 

At the time I commenced my tour through Main 
street, there was a wooden building standing at the 
southwest corner of Lincoln Square, about where the 
bank w^all now terminates in front of the court houses. 
It was then a grocery ; but my father said that it had 
been noted for many years in his day as the headquar- 
ters of the democratic politicians of Worcester. Dr. 
Abraham Lincoln, he said, kept an apothecary shop 
there, and there the politics of the day were discussed. 
My father said that Dr. Lincoln loyed politics and 
segars equally well ; and all day long he would sit 
with his heels up, smoking his much loved " Indian 
weed." The doctor's wife, my father told me, was 
the eldest daughter of Col. Timothy Bigelow, the 
blacksmith officer. Besides being chosen to town 
offices, the doctor was elected a member of the consti- 
tutional convention of 1820 ; also to the general court, 
and to the executive council, of which he was a mem- 
ber at the time of his death ; and as that was before my 
day I think he must have died at least thirty years ago. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Mr. Editor. — Twenty years ago the brick Court 
House was the most attractive building in Worcester. 
As I lived in its vicinity, it was always the great pleasure 
of my boy days when there was no school, to get the 
privilege of my father to go into the court house, and 
hear the trials. " You can learn what mischief and 
crime is," said my father ; " and when you see how 
rogues are punished, I hope you will learn not to be a 
rogue yourself." I remembered my father's remark ; 
and I think I profited by the scenes I often witnessed. 
I was touched once, I remember, by the trial of a 
small boy. He had stolen a few dollars in money from 
the man with whom he lived. On the trial he had no 
one to speak for him ; and for that reason, I suppose, 
he received a hard sentence. To my limited vision 
the judges then appeared to me the biggest men in the 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 39 

universe. The Hon. Calvin Willard, now living in 
v^^ell-deserved retirement, then filled the chair of high 
sheriff, and represented, in his bearing in court, the 
dignity and honor of the commonwealth. Silas Brooks 
performed serious service for the court, by uttering the 
short but expressive prayer, every morning, noon and 
night: — ''''God save the Commojiwealth of Massa- 
ckicsettsf" Hon. Abijah Bigelow filled the place of 
clerk ; and, with a voice peculiarly his own, he put 
the jurors upon the panel, and administered the oath. 
I supposed the voice was one that belonged to the 
office, and not to the man ; and I was not undeceived 
until the late Hon. Joseph G. Kendall (an excellent 
man I afterwards found him,) was appointed successor 
to Air. Bigelow^, and administered the oaths and read 
the documents in his own natural tone of voice. The 
lawyers, with their green bags, were the subjects of 
my admiration ; they used to walk into court with such 
an air of consequence ; and were so busy, most of them 
in doing nothing. Alost of the trials were conducted 
by Mr. Merrick and Mr. Allen ; and I could never 
understand the reason why they must get into a quarrel 
in almost all the cases they tried ; especially as they 
seemed to be o"ood natin"ed enousfh when the trial was 



40 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

over. I have since learned that many of the personal 
altercations in this world are only in a Pickwickian 
sense. 

" They will have to build a new court house soon," 
said my father, as we passed out of Lincoln Square, 
and made our entrance into Main street. '' Why, 
what for.^" was the inquiry I naturally made. "Well," 
said he, " it has been so from the beginning. A 
public building does not serve well more than one or 
two generations before a new one is demanded to suit 
the wants and the taste of the people." He told me 
that the first court house was built the year after the 
county was incorporated ; and I have since learned 
that the county was incorporated in 1 731, by taking 
portions of the counties of Suffolk, Middlesex, and 
Hampshire. Worcester itself was in Middlesex. He 
said that the first court house was built of wood, and 
much resembled the country school houses (which are 
apt to stand where four roads meet ; ) and that the land 
was given by a Mr. William Jennison, who lived a 
little south of it. " Your grandfather," said he, 
*' often told what a great day they had wdien the first 
court house vv^as dedicated. People came into town 
from all parts of the county, and the exercises out of 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 41 

doors were full of fun ; while within they consisted 
mainly of a speech from one of the judges." I have 
since discovered that the judge who made the speech, 
was Judge John Chandler, of Woodstock, now a town 
in Connecticut. That court house, my father said, 
much as it w^as praised at the time, lasted but about 
twenty years, when a second one, much larger, was 
erected. The second one, he well remembered, after 
being in service about fifty years, was moved from 
Court Hill to the head of Green street, where it was 
conxerted into a dwelling house, and is now the 
residence of George A. Trumbull, Esq.,* who, from the 
many anecdotes I have heard of him, must have been 
the residuary legatee of all the wits who flourished in 
the building during its half century of use as a court 
house. My father said that he took great interest in 
the building of the brick court house, and went often 
to see the progress made by the masons and carpenters ; 
and that he, with a multitude more, attended the dedi- 
cation in the autumn of 1803, (^ think he said it was,) 
when if I do not misremember, a eulogistic speech 
was delivered upon the grandeur and magnificence of 
the edifice, by the excellent Chief Justice, Robert 

"This building is still standing in Trumbull Square. 



42 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

Treat Paine, whose residence, I think, must have been 
at that time in Newburyport. 

The brick court house, although now occupied by 
some of the lower courts, has been thrown into the 
shade by the elegant court house, with its six massive 
columns, all of hammered Qriincy granite, standing in 
a commanding position a few rods south of the old 
.house. But your readers know where and what it is 
without my telling them. 

My father told me that in the early times of the 
county, Court Hill was more abrupt than it now is ; 
that it seemed to him to be the head of a bank of gravel 
and sand that lies at the base of the clayey hill that 
runs along the whole length of the west side of Main 
street ; that on its sloping sides grew native bushes ; 
and on its summit stood the pillory, the whipping post 
and the stocks ; and that when the poor rogues were 
punished, the boys, the men, and even women, were 
accustomed to gather around them, and make them 
the subject of rude witticism and coarse remark. 
"What is a pillory? What is a whipping post.f^ 
What are the stocks ? " were the questions I put to my 
father in quick succession. " I will tell you some 
time, but not now," said he ; and we went on our tour. 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 43 

My father told me afterwards that he never saw but 
one pillory ; and then a man and a woman were 
punished by standing in it one hour, to answer the 
sentence of the court. It consisted of a staging several 
feet above the ground, with a post rising in the centre. 
On the post were cross pieces with holes in them 
sufficiently large to admit the neck and wrists. The 
cross pieces were in two parts, so that the head and 
hands could be put into the holes ; and, when in, they 
were brought together, encircling the neck and wrists ; 
and there by the hour stood the culprits with their 
hands elevated as high as their heads, in danger of 
suffocating unless they stood straight up all the time ; 
and there, all the while, they took the taunts and jibes 
of the spectators. 

*' I never saw but one man publicly whipped,'* 
said my father, " and he w^as a horse thief." He said 
that a post was set up in the ground, with a bar across 
it, higher up than a man's head. The thief was led 
out of jail by the officers, at a time of day when his 
punishment would be an admonition to as many 
spectators as possible ; and when brought to the post 
he was stripped naked to his waist, and his hands tied 
up to the cross-bar. One of the officers then gave him 



44 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

as many lashes with the cat-o'nine-tails as the court 
had ordered, upon his naked back. The cat consisted 
of a whip handle about a foot and a half in length, 
with nine small knotted cords, of about the same 
length. My father said that the blood spurted out of 
the poor fellow's back, at the first blow, wherever the 
knots hit him. He shrieked out at every blow. He 
received fifteen lashes ; and when about half of them 
had been given, my father said it made him shudder 
to hear the sherifl' exclaim to the officer: — "Cut 
harder, or I'll cut you ! " He said that when the 
fifteen lashes had all been given, the blood ran freely 
down the culprit's back, w^hich looked as red as raw 
beef; and they then rubbed it over with soft soap, and 
led him back to prison. 

There were other punishments administered by the 
courts in the olden times. M}^ father said that he 
never saw a prisoner in the stocks ; nor did he ever 
see the cropping of ears ; but he remembered to have 
seen persons whose ears had suffered some curtailment 
by the application of the legal shears. Another 
punishment was that of branding. He said that he 
saw it done once. A thief was taken from jail to a 
place where all who wanted could witness the 



i 



carl's tour in main street. 45 

operation. He was laid upon his back in a rough 
box ; his hands and feet secured ; and the letter T 
pricked into his forehead with indelible ink. There 
it stood, not a " scarlet letter," but an ugly black one 
in the face and eyes of the world ; and years of 
penitence could not eftace it, nor " sorrow's tear," 
coursing through a life of bitter remorse, wash it out. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Mr. Editor : — What was the subject of my last 
chapter? Oh, I remember ; it was about court houses, 
pillories, whipping posts, and stocks, and lawyers, and 
such paraphernalia of courts of justice. My father told 
me that he had often heard my grandfather represent 
the condition of things which prevailed here when the 
courts were first held in Worcester, a century and a 
quarter ago. Every term of the courts, — and it made 
no difference whether it was the supreme or an inferior 
court, — was a holiday. All the jockeys in the county 
came in ; and Main street from one end to the other, 
was a common race-course, until it had become such 
an unendurable evil to the inhabitants, that an ordinance 
w^as adopted which imposed a fine of 20 shillings upon 
any one who should race a horse through Main street 
while any court w^as in session. 



carl's tour in main street. 47 

At that time the hiferlor court was composed of a 
chief justice, and all the magistrates in the county as 
side-judges ; and my father said that he heard my 
grandfather tell how he once went into the court house 
when the court of sessions was sitting ; and how he 
had with him a fine, large, black Newfoundland dog. 
Old Gen. Ruggles was on the bench as chief justice, 
with a row of inferiors extending out each side of him. 
The chief had no respect for a court thus constituted ; 
and when my grandfather's dog mounted himself, 
uninvited, in a vacant chair among the judges. Judge 
Ruggles turned upon the dog, and in a blunt manner 
exclaimed to him: — "Get dow^n out of that chair, 
upon the floor, and presume not to seat yourself there 
again, before you have taken the oath ! " This 
anecdote reminds me of a similar judge of a like 
court, in our neighboring state of New Hampshire. 
They have side-judges there : and one of them said 
that he had never been consulted on the bench but 
once by the chief justice ; and that was on one day at 
the close of a long term. The clerk was winding up 
the docket ; there was a momentary suspension of 
business ; and the chief justice turned to him and 
asked, in a complaisant inanner : — " Is not this bench 
made of hard wood } " 



48 carl's tour in main street. 

My father said that he often heard his father remark 
that there was no hiwyer In Worcester when the county 
was incorporated ; that Josh. Eaton was the first one 
who ventured to put up his " shingle" here; that he 
came from some town near Boston, and although not 
a man of splendid abilities, he nevertheless did a good 
business and accumulated a handsome property ; and, 
what was singular for one of that profession he w^as 
almost fanatical upon the subject of religion — practising 
law week days, and going up to what Is now Spencer, 
to preach on Sundays. 

My father said, and he seemed to know all about 
It, that there were several odd specimens of lav^^yers in 
Worcester In the early times, besides Josh. Eaton. 
Some of them kept stores, and sold cod-fish and 
molasses, and made writs, deeds, and pleas, just as 
their customers wanted. Yet there were some able 
men ; Putnam, the Chandlers, Lincoln, and Judge 
Bangs. The latter my father said was a man of talent 
and taste : lived for a long time In a house, with his 
office attached to It, opposite where the stone court 
house now stands, and where the " Bangs Block" has 
been recently erected ; and In the rear of which he had 
a large and beautiful garden in w^hich he had a splendid 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 49 

collection of fruits and flowers that were beautiful and 
rare for those times. 

Perhaps my love for historical studies was to some 
extent developed by hearing my father often allude to 
the " Shays Rebellion," which took place when he 
himself was a boy. He remembered its scenes and 
events with the certainty of an eye witness ; and as it 
was in his early life, they planted themselves deep in 
his memory. I have not the time, nor is it necessary, 
to enter into any explanation of the causes that pro- 
duced that civil war in our midst. Suffice the remark, 
that the country had just come out of the eight years' 
war of the revolution. It was impoverished by taxation. 
Property, if sold at all, was sold at an immense sacrifice. 
My grandfather used to sell wood, which grew at no 
great distance from his house, for 50 dollars the cord, 
and corn at 15 dollars the bushel ; and my father said 
that he went out once with him, and helped him drive 
home a cow, for w^hich he paid 750 dollars, in the 
currency of the times. Everything was on the " high 
road to ruin." Debts could not be paid ; and the 
more they could not, the more the lawyers made 
writs, so that in the two years preceding the "Shays 
Rebellion," nearly 4000 suits were entered in the courts 

4 



50 carl's tour in main street. 

of Worcester county, notwithstanding the population 
was but about one-third as large then as it now is. 
The people were aroused well nigh to desperation ; 
and they determined that the courts should not pass 
the writs to judgment and execution. I confess to a 
good deal of sympathy with the public feeling of that 
time, although they were in error. Meetings were 
held in many of the towns. Conventions were called. 
But it was not till the September term of the court of 
common pleas, for the year 1786, that open resistance 
was made to the administration of justice. The 
Monday before the Tuesday on which the court was 
to commence its term, it was rumored that a company 
of soldiers were coming into town from Hubbardston, 
to prevent the court from being held ; and my Either 
said that he and a multitude more of boys and men 
went out on the Holden road (what is now Salisbury 
street,) to meet them. When first seen they were 
coming down Pratt's hill, and looked rather formida- 
ble with their guns and bristling bayonets. They 
halted, he said, for a moment opposite the Qiiigley 
road, as though in expectation of resistance to their 
farther progress. It was but for a moment, when 
they passed on to Court Hill, in front of the court 



carl's tour in main street. 51 

house, where they were addressed by their captain, 
Adam Wheeler, and where many who sympathized 
in the movement came forward and gave them their 
congratidations. The company was nearly a hundred 
strong. They surrounded the court house, and took 
possession. They made their headquarters, as I have 
before stated, at the " Hancock Arms," which stood 
on Lincoln street. Early the next morning a com- 
pany, under Captain Smith, marched into town on 
the same road, and joined Wheeler's men at the court 
house. At the ai^pointed hour, the judges with the 
old Chief Justice Ward at their head, sheriffs, law- 
yers, etc., moved through Main street in a body. My 
father said he was standing in the bushes that then 
grew on the bank in front of the court house, where 
he could see what was done, and hear what was said. 
A file of soldiers stood at the door with bayonets 
fixed, and the house was filled with armed men. He 
said his blood curdled when he saw the old general 
judge stopped at the door by the bayonets which were 
pressed against his bosom ; but that in no way daunted 
he ordered the soldiers to fall back, and the door to 
be opened. Neither party gave way ; and for a long 
time the judge stood resting against the bayonets, all 



52 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

the while talking in a loud tone about the laws and 
the gallows. After making a long speech, the judges 
retired from the court house to the "United States 
Arms," (now the Exchange Hotel,) where the court 
was regularly opened, and adjourned to the next day. 
The rebellion forces increased through the day and 
night, and were known by the little sprigs of ever- 
Sfreen stuck in their hats. The court found itself shut 
out from the court house, and adjourned its term to 
November. 

In November the court met with the same sort of 
resistance, and adjourned without transacting any 
business. It is not my purpose to write a history of 
the " Shays Rebellion," because it may be found 
detailed at length in the records of the times, and by 
the diligence and fidelity of subsequent historians. 
But my father said that when the court met again in 
November, he expected that there would be a battle ; 
as the insurgent . troops were on hand in great 
numbers, and the military companies of the town had 
turned out to uphold the courts. The judges then 
found that the rebellion troops had taken possession 
of the "United States Arms" for their headquarters, 
and they were compelled to open their court at the 



carl's tour in main street. 53 

old " Sun Tavern" which stood on the ground now 
occupied by the splendid block of stores recently 
erected by William C. Clark.* The military of the 
town formed on the common, and marched down 
Main street. My father said he run by their side, and 
that when they had come to within a few rods of the 
"U. S. Arms" they found the way blocked up by 
the insurgent forces. Both forces looked resolute ; 
both seemed determined to fight for the mastery ; and 
every moment he expected to hear the bullets whistle. 
But fortunately the rebellion men gave way, and 
retreated to Court Hill, and the court troops passed on 
to the " Hancock Arms." No business was attempted 
by the court, which adjourned over to January. Yet 
the insurgents were not to be tired out by adjourn- 
ments ; and it was in the first week in December, 
(1786) that Shays made his entrance into town at 
the head of about Soo men from the county of Hamp- 
shire and the western part of Worcester. Their 
appearance was imposing, my father said, as they 
drew up in front of the court house. But as there 
was no special occasion for their presence here, they 
marched back the next day as far as Rutland, in the 

*Now known as the Walker Building, at the corner of Main and Mechanic sts. 



54 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

midst of a severe snow storm, some of them perish- 
ing by the way from cold and hunger. 

As the time approached for the holding of the 
court which had been adjourned to the last of January, 
Governor Bowdoin determined to adopt vigorous 
measures. An army of 4400 men, from the five 
counties of vSuffolk, Essex, Middlesex, Hampshire 
and Worcester, was called into service for one month ; 
and the whole placed under the command of Gen. 
Benjamin Lincoln. The three regiments from Suffolk, 
Essex and Middlesex, marched out of Boston and 
encamped the first night in Marlborough ; and reached 
Worcester in the afternoon of the next day. The 
town presented a truly warlike appearance for a 
usually quiet country village. It was the dead of 
w^inter, and every house was full of armed men. 
General Lincoln, the next day, left General Warren, 
of Hampshire, in command at Worcester, with a 
regiment of troops to protect the court, while he 
moved on with the main body of his forces towards 
Springfield. Shays had retreated to Pelham, and 
again to Petersham. Advised of his position, Lincoln 
moved by a forced march from Hadle}' to Petersham, 
a distance of more than thirty miles, in a single night, 



carl's tour in main street. 55 

in the midst of a snow storm. Shays and his men, 
surprised at their unexpected approach, fled in con- 
sternation in every direction. Some of the insurgents 
were tried ; most of them acquitted ; and others 
treated with lenity by the government. 

Daniel Shays was no ordinary man. My father 
said that he never saw but few men who excelled him 
in the qualities of a popular leader. Mounted on a 
large white horse, he looked finely as he rode down 
Salisbury street at the head of his regiment of 800 
men. His birthplace was " Saddle Hill" in the 
westerly part of Hopkinton, in Middlesex. But his 
family moved when he was young into western Mass- 
achusetts, and it was there that he enlisted in the 
revolutionary army, in which he did good service as 
a captain. On retiring from the war he settled in 
Pelham in Hampshire ; and there he was visited by 
the leaders of the rebellion, and induced to take the 
command of their forces. Shays fled into Vermont ; 
and from there he moved into York State where he 
died, in the town of Sparta, about thirty years ago. 

I think better of Shays than the world has gener- 
ally thought of him. I am no advocate for rebellion ; 
but I must believe that under the circumstances, the 



56 carl's tour in main street. 

courts, and especially the lawyers, should have shown 
more indulgence than it appears they did show to the 
people in the terrible embarrassments in which they 
had been placed by the eight years' war. Writs were 
followed by executions ; and executions by forced 
sales, In which the property sold for scarcely more 
than enough to pay the costs. Shays's purpose, 
mistaken though he may have been, was nothing 
beyond a reform of what were deemed the abuses of 
government. But he was deceived by those in whom 
he had confided. The people did not rally under his 
pine tree banner as he was assured they would ; and 
thus a movement w^hich opened with the solemn 
significance of a tragedy, closed with all the mock 
heroism of a farce. This is a portion of the history 
of our Main street : written sixtv-nine years ago — not 
with fire and blood upon the ground, but upon the 
memories of the people. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Mr. Editor i—T^Nenty yQ^Y^ ago there stood upon 
the precise ground now occupied by the stone court 
house, the dwelling house of one of the most remark 
able men of Massachusetts. His name was known 
throughout the whole country. He died about a 
quarter of a century ago, and not many years after 
his decease, his house was removed to a lot in the 
rear, where it now stands ; but the stately appearance 
it had in my boy days, has been marred by the 
removal. It was the house of Isaiah Thomas. My 
father said that he knew him well, and was intimate 
with him, and in early times they had extensive 
dealings with each other. Just south of his house 
stood his office, where he carried on the printing 
business more extensively than any other man in the 
country ; employing, at times, not less than one 



58 carl's tour in xMAin street. 

hundred and fifty hands in the various departments of 
making paper, and printing, and binding, and selling 
books, newspapers, etc. Printing was all done in 
those times by hand presses, and without the aid of 
the complicate and beautiful machinery which later 
inventions have introduced. 

Although my father was younger than Dr. Thomas, 
and was but a bov at the time, he said he remembered 
well the day when the Declaration of Independence 
was received in town ; that it was soon noised abroad 
that such a document had come in the southern mail ; 
and that the citizens of the town, and others from the 
country who happened to be in town, gathered in 
large numbers at the Old South Church.* Dr. 
Thomas went into the porch, and taking a Philadel- 
phia newspaper from his pocket, read the declaration 
in a clear and loud tone of voice ; putting special 
emphasis upon some portions of the document, and 
nodding his assent to those passages that were 
considered as particularly severe upon the conduct of 



*The messenger bearing the Declaration of Independence to Boston, passed 
through Worcester on the 14th of July, and was intercepted and a copy obtained, 
which was read, as above stated, from the porch on the west side of the Old South 
Meeting House. The Declaration was first printed in New England in the Sfy 
of July 17. 



carl's tour in main street. 59 

old King George. With a flushed countenance he 
conchided the reading, and then called upon the 
assembly to give three cheers for the Continental 
Congress. It was then proposed that the clergyman 
be requested to read the declaration in the pulpit the 
following Sunday ; and that a patriotic meeting be 
held on the common the Monday succeeding. My 
father said that most of the persons present seemed to be 
wonderfully elated on the occasion ; but that he noticed 
a little knot of well dressed gentlemen who looked 
pale, haggard and dejected, while the document was 
being read; and that when it was over they went 
across the road by themselves, and were engaged in 
earnest conversation for a long time. I do not 
remember what he said of them, farther than that they 
were tories who disapproved of the declaration, and 
thought that the country had been ruined by a rash 
and radical congress. 

The next Sunday, my father said he was early at 
church. Every one was talking of the news. The 
minister read the declaration in the pulpit. Many of 
the congregation seemed to be much pleased with it ; 
others looked sad and disheartened ; while very many 
appeared to be in doubt whether to approve or not. 



6o carl's tour in main street. 

And that was the first reading of the Declaration of 
Independence in the churches. 

The next day the people gathered together in great 
numbers upon the common. The bell was rung ; 
cannons and muskets were fired ; and all the machin- 
ery of a modern 4th of July was put in motion ; and a 
master-spirit in the movement was Dr. Thomas. The 
arms of George III. were brought from the court 
house, and burned upon the common ; and the people 
then formed a procession, and moved to the music of 
a drum and fife to the "King's Arms" tavern, which 
stood where the Worcester House* now stands, and 
requested the good landlady to take down her sign, 
which had the king's arms painted upon it, and use it 
to kindle her oven with. She readily complied with 
their request, and they closed the ceremonies by 
drinking toasts appropriate to the occasion. 

Dr. Thomas manifested at an early age his repug- 
nance to British authority. After serving his appren- 
ticeship to a printer in Boston, he went to Halifax in 
Nova Scotia, into the office of the Halifax Gazette. 
But it was not long before he became involved in 
difficulty. The Gazette was the government paper ; 

*Now the Lincoln House. These proceedings took place on the 22d of July. 



carl's tour in main street. 6i 

its paper was sent out stamped from England ; and 
Thomas took the liberty to cut oft' the stamps before 
putting it to press. He returned to Boston, and 
commenced the publication of the " Massachusetts 
Spy." But as the revolutionary spirit began to burn, 
he moved from Boston to Worcester, where he built 
up the large business I have already mentioned. In 
all the war measures he took an active part. He 
was the first postmaster in Worcester, and w^as largely 
identified in all public movements, in which he was 
liberal as well as public-spirited. He made several 
donations to the town. It must have been half a 
century ago that he opened, built and dedicated to 
the public use, the street that bears his name ; for 
my father was accustomed to relate what a jovial 
time they had ; the soldiers marching through the 
street and firing volleys ; and the people bringing 
out their pailsful of punch, which was freely dis- 
tributed. 

I have already mentioned Dr. Thomas as the 
founder of the American Antiquarian Society, and 
the liberal donor of the land and building, and of 
the great mass of books, papers and pamphlets, 
which he had accumulated in the prosecution of his 



62 carl's tour in main street. 

business. I have seen an extract from his will which 
evinces the kind interest which he manifested for 
the poor and unfortunate. After donating a piece of 
land on Thomas street — I think it was opposite the 
Thomas school house — on condition that the town 
should erect an almshouse thereon, he provided that 
$20 a year should be taken from the income of the 
investment to furnish a good Thanksgiving dinner 
to the pauper inmates, with half a pint of wine to 
each one, or such spirituous liquors as they might 
prefer. The town declined to accept the donation ; 
and, so far as I know, the paupers have to this time 
been without the wine and spirits they would other- 
wise have received. 

Dr. Thomas's remains were deposited in the 
granite tomb, near the Boston and Worcester railroad 
track, in the old burying ground on the north side 
of Mechanic street.* Some of his descendants are 
among us, filling high places in the public service, 
and in the esteem of the people. 

As we passed by the Thomas house, my father 
pointed out the spot where the first school house in 



*Dr. Thomas's remains, with the stone tomb in which they were inclosed, 
were removed to Rural Cemetery, June 24, 1878. 



carl's tour in main street. 63 

Worcester was erected. He said it was standing 
there when he was a boy. The ground about has 
been so changed since, that I am not able now to 
identify the spot ; but it was near the middle of 
Main street, nearly opposite the Thomas house ; and 
was passed by us shortly after we went out of Lincoln 
Square into Main street. Whatever may have been 
the changes in the locality of business and of popula- 
tion, it is manifest that the " North End" has its full 
share of historic memories and associations. 

^"^ours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Mr. Editor : — "That is a very nice church," 
said I to my father, as we passed along from the 
Thomas house, and came to the meeting house of the 
Second Parish, the next building south. 

" Yes," was his reply; "we thought so when it 
was built ; and there is my old friend Dr. Bancroft, 
the minister, standing upon the steps." We stopped, 
and they talked a few minutes together. The doctor 
was talkative and pleasant, but serious in his air. I 
had seen him in the pulpit, but had never before 
heard him speak elsewhere. I remembered him as 
he prayed in church with his eyes wide open and 
fixed upon some point, and of his simple and efiective 
earnestness in preaching ; and in my limited vision 
he was always associated with my idea of the " great 
apostle to the Gentiles," St. Paul. It was the remark 



carl's tour in main street. 65 

of my father, I remember, that "he is an intellectual 
man, of a great share of common sense, of simplicity 
and force of character, and who cares less for himself 
than he does for the people, to whom he is supremely 
devoted. It was about fifty years ago," he said, " that 
Dr. Bancroft came to Worcester to live." And he 
told me that the doctor was then about thirty years 
of age ; of middle stature, dark complexion, slender, 
and straight. There was but one meeting house in 
town, whtch was then all one parish. You remember 
that in a former chapter I spoke of the destruction, 
by a mob of " gentlemen," of a house of worship 
which had been erected in the upper part of Lincoln 
street, by the Scotch Presbyterians, who settled here 
about the year 1718; among whom was the Irish 
James Rankin, the father of the beautiful Anna Ran- 
kin, who married the young collegian, Sam. Andrews, 
whose daughter, Anna Andrews, was the wife of 
Col. Timothy Bigelow, the patriot blacksmith of the 
revolution. "When they tore that meeting house 
down," said my father, "they meant to put a stop 
forever to all dissensions in the church, and retain 
the whole town in support of one meeting ; and they 
succeeded for more than half a century. But they 

5 



66 CARl/s TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

could not chain the human mind up to one form of 
belief, however important it might be in itself; nor 
fetter the conscience with the shackles of opinions 
which some men held to be true, but which others 
did not believe in." The attention of the whole 
people was so much engrossed by the war that they 
had no leisure for church quarrels ; and things went 
on harmoniously until the peace of 1783 gave the 
people an opportunity to turn their attention in a 
greater degree to spiritual matters ; and then, as is 
too often the case, the beauties and graces of the 
Christian life were too often marred and disfigured 
by bickerings about minor points of doctrine or 
form. 

My father said that when a boy he was required to 
go to meeting every Sunday, rain or shine ; and as 
the minister of the Old South Church, Rev. Thaddeus 
Maccarty, w^as for him a dull preacher — perhaps 
because the infirmities of age were coming upon him 
— he was glad when they began to talk about having 
a new minister. Mr. Bancroft preached, and a part 
of the town were anxious to settle him as a colleague 
w4th Mr. Maccarty. But there was a strong party 
opposed to him. They thought he was unsound on 



carl's tour in main street. 67 

some points of belief; and that, although a good man, 
his settlement would open the door for heresies to 
creep in. The contest grew warm, and ended only 
in the withdrawal of some of the church, and ot 
many of the parish, who formed a separate society 
and invited Mr. Bancroft to become their minister. 

Several of the prominent men of the town left 
the old church and joined the new parish ; among 
whom, I remember to have heard my father say, 
were the elder Levi Lincoln, Judge Bangs, Col. 
Timothy Bigelow and Isaiah Thomas ; and if I 
remember aright it was about the year 1785 that they 
met for the first time for separate worship, in the 
court house (now the Trumbull house), where they 
continued to hold their meetings for a period of six 
or seven years. They drew up and signed a church 
covenant. It was in February, 1786, that Dr. Ban- 
croft was ordained ; and at that tihie there were but 
two settled ministers in the county whom it was 
thought it would be of any use to invite to the 
ordination — Rev. Mr. Harrington, of Lancaster, and 
Rev. Mr. Adams, of Lunenburg. The other clergy- 
men who took part in the ordination exercises, were 
from Boston and Salem. 



68 carl's tour in main street. 

While this young church was struggling into life, 
its members were obliged, not only to support it from 
their purses, but to pay the taxes that were assessed 
upon them by the town for the support of the gospel 
at the old church. This hardship induced the second 
parish to procure the passage of the Act of 17S77 
which permitted persons to quit one society and join 
another by filing a notice of their intention with the 
clerk. After worshiping in the court house for half 
a dozen years, the second parish gained strength 
sufficient to build a meeting house. It was built of 
wood, on the east side and near the north end of 
Summer street ; and was occupied by the parish until 
the year 1839, when the brick building, spoken of 
at the commencement of this chapter, was completed. 
At the time I made my tour through Main street the 
old meeting house had lost its identity as a church. 
The porch has been cut off, and moved out at a mile 
or more on the Grafton road, and been converted 
into a negro-man's dwelling house. The church itself 
had been metamorphosed into a hotel — what in later 
times would be denominated a "rum tavern." Fail- 
ing to make itself profitable at that, it underwent 
another change, was sold to the town, and converted 



carl's tour in main street. 69 

into a school house ; for which commendable purpose 
it is now employed ; though when I reflect on the 
adamantine endurance of school house associations, 
I could wish, for the sake of the young minds that 
go there for illumination, that it had a pleasanter 
location.* 

The brick church " served its day and generation," 
which expired in 1849. The organ had been taken 
out of the house, and extensiv^e repairs had been just 
completed, when one fine summer evening, just before 
9 o'clock, it w^as discovered that the church was on 
fire. The fire mounted rapidly to the belfry, and 
up the steeple, beyond the reach of the firemen ; and 
in a short time the building was a pile of ruins ; in 
which was a bell nearly new, of a finer tone than any 
Worcester ever had before or since. To a person who 
has an eye for the picturesque, it was worth the price 
of the building to see the flames as thev darted up 
and curled and twisted, like so many flerv serpents 
bent on mischief, around the timbers that formed the 
steeple ; consuming their substance as they played, 
until timbers and serpent flames fell into darkness 
together. 

*rhis building is standing on Summer street, and is still used as a school-house. 



yo carl's tour in main street. 

"Did they save the commandments?" inquired a 
merry wag of me the next morning, as I stood looking 
over the ruins. And he then told me that he alluded 
to the tablets w^hich hung at the sides of the pulpit, 
on w^hich were written in letters of gold the Ten 
Commandments ; and how the prince of wits who 
painted them had inquired of one of the good deacons 
of the church, if in painting them he would not prefer 
to have them clear boards with all the nofs left out. 

It is now nearly seventy years since the second 

parish became a distinct religious community ; and 

duringf all that time it has embraced a liberal share 

of the prominent men of the town. It has never 

had but two ministers, Dr. Bancroft and the present 

officiating clergyman.* The new house will justify 

me in applying to it the designation of a " nice 

church" which I applied to the old one twenty years 

ago. Church building, like too many church-goers, 

seems to have a sensibility to fashion and keeps up 

with its progress. What will meet the demands 

of future generations it will be for a future historian 

to record. 

Yours, CARL. 

*Rev. Alonzo HiH, D. D., who died Feb. i, 1S71. 



CHAPTER X. 

Mr. Editor: — Nearh- opposite the churcli of the 
second parish, stands the Exchange Hotel, which has 
undergone scarcely any perceptible change during the 
twenty years that have passed since I made my tour 
in Main street, except in its name. Its sign then was, 
I remember, the " Exchange Coffee House, Samuel 
B. Thomas," and him I have not forgotten, with his 
capacious white hat and green spectacles. There 
were no railroads then. Alost people travelled in 
stage coaches. It ^vas a pleasure to me then to watch 
the stages as they came into town from Springfield and 
Northampton and Boston. Leaving the two places in 
the West they would arrive in town in season for the 
passengers to dine at the Exchange Coffee House ; 
frequently eight or ten coaches full, inside and out ; 



72 carl's tour in main street. 

and after dinner away one after another to Boston. 
Those were undoubtedly great times for country 
taverns on great roads ; but they are gone, never to 
come back. 

As we passed by the Exchange Coffee House, it 
was the remark of my father that he remembered 
perfectly well just how President Washington looked 
the morning that he stopped there to take his breakfast. 
It was the first year of his presidency — the first under 
the constitution. It was on Friday, the 23d day ot 
October, 1 789. The town, my father said, w as thrown 
into a great excitement the afternoon previous by the 
arrival of the news that Washington was at Brookfield, 
and would reach Worcester the next morning. Every 
good horse was put in requisition ; and at sunrise a 
cavalcade of some fortv to fifty gentlemen — most of 
them young men — rode up to Leicester, to meet the 
president and escort him into town. My fiither said, 
with hundreds of others he was in waiting near the 
south church ; and that as the president came over the 
high ground near where the Oread Institute now is, a 
signal was given, and cannons were fired and the bell 
rung. The president rode in a chariot drawn by four 
beautiful bay horses, which were understood to be of 



carl's tour in main street. 73 

his own raising on his Virginia estates ; and when he 
had reached the south end of Main street, he left his 
chariot and rode horseback through Main street to the 
United States Arms, (afterwards the Exchange Coffee 
House,) when he dismounted and partook of a break- 
fast. My father said that the people were much 
disappointed that the president could stop no longer ; 
but he apologized by saying that it was then Friday 
morning, and he was anxious to reach Boston before 
Sunday. After breakfast, amidst immense cheering 
by the people who had assembled in great numbers, 
Washington took his seat in his chariot, and started 
oft" on the old road to Boston (now Lincoln street), 
attended as far as Marlborough by a large cavalcade of 
gentlemen from Worcester. 

Washington was then 57 years and 8 months old. 
He wore a brown dress, my father told me ; and was an 
unostentatious, plain, sedate citizen, notwithstanding 
people generally addressed him and spoke of him as 
His Highness the President. And I may as well 
relate, in passing, how this title happened to be applied 
to Washington. When on his way from Virginia to 
New York, previous to his inauguration, he stopped 
to dine at the house of Dr. Shippen in Philadelphia. 



74 carl's tour in main street. 

Several gentlemen were at the table, — among whom 
was Mr. Madison and Judge McKean, Mrs. Shippen 
inquired what was to be the title of the president. 
Some one suggested that of His Serene Highness ; 
but as that was appropriated abroad, it was discarded. 
A discussion arose upon the propriety of any title. 
Mr. Madison thought that nothing could be so appro- 
priate, and so much in keeping with the character ot 
our republican institutions, as the plain designation, 
The President. Judge McKean went in strong for a 
title, and suggested that oi His Highness. Washington 
himself was in favor of some title, and intimated the 
pertinency of that of the Stadtholder of Holland, His 
Mighty Highness. But Judge McKean's suggestion 
met with the most favor ; and if the title was to have 
been perpetuated, it is fortunate that nothing more 
resplendent was adopted, as it w^ould be ludicrously 
inapplicable to some little men who are sometimes 
found in big places. 

I am tempted here to introduce a letter written by 
Washington, at Hartford, when on his way home from 
his eastern tour. He did not come back through 
Worcester ; but went by the wav of Uxbridge. It 
was written to a Mr. Taft. thus : 



carl's tour in main stkket. 75 

a Sir:— Being informed that you have given my 
name to one of vour sons, and called another after 
Mrs. Washington's family, and being moreover much 
pleased with the modest and innocent look of your 
two daughters PaUy and Po/ly, I do for these reasons 
send each of these girls a piece of chintz ; and to Patty, 
who bears the name of Mrs. Washington, and who 
waited upon us more than Polly did, I send five 
guineas, with which she may buy herself any little 
ornaments she may want, or she may dispose of them 
in any other manner more agreeable to herself. As I 
do not give these things to have it talked of, or even 
to its being known, the less there is said about the 
matter the better vou will please me ; but that I may 
be sure the chintz and money have got sate to hand, 
let Patty, who I dare sav is equal to it, write me a Ime 
informing me thereof, directed to ' The President of 
the United States, New York.' I wish you and your 
family well, and am your humble servant." 

As this was long before my day — and I do not 
remember even to have heard my fother speak of it — I 
never heard what was said of the chintz dresses given 
to Patty and Polly Taft by President Washington, nor 
what disposition Patty made of her five guineas, which 
she received in consideration of her having been 
named after Ji/iss Martha Dandridge. It would 
please me much, Mr. Editor, and I doubt not the 
information would be acceptable to your readers, if 
some one who has the focts would inform us what 



76 carl's tour in main street. 

became of Patty and Polly ; for it is manifest, from his 
letter, that Washington, as the saying is, " took 
quite a shine " to Patty. I hope she received the 
chintz and the money all safe ; and that she wrote an 
acknowledgement of their reception, as she was 
desired to do. 

I know not what may have been the various 
fortunes of the ' United States Arms ' — whether it was 
altered, enlarged, or rebuilt, — after Washington left it 
on that Friday morning, the 23d of October, 1789; 
for my personal knowledge of it covers but about 
one-third of its intervening history. But I remember 
that it was reputed to be an excellent hotel, furnishing 
*' refreshments for man and beast;" among which 
were those "refreshments" which too many men are 
fond of, but which beasts will not take at all. I 
remember, also, that twenty years ago, as I was 
passing by one morning I discovered that there had 
been a sudden conversion on the premises ; that the 
old sign had been pulled down, and a new one elevated 
in its place ; and that without an act of the legislature 
or a decree of the judge of probate, the hotel had 
dropped its savory name of " Exchange Coffee House" 
for the significant one of " Temperance Exchange." 



carl's tour in main street. 77 

And on a post, near by, I read a proclamation of the 
fact of the conversion, by the proprietor, in which he 
invited all the friends of the " noble cause of temper- 
ance " to come forward and sustain his house in the 
new life on which it had just entered. I am not able 
to sav when this incident occurred ; but it is my 
impression that it was shortly after the passage of that 
famous law which provided that men should take 
ardent spirits in no less quantities than fifteen gallons 
at a time. Judging from outward indications, the old 
*' United States Arms," where the judges opened their 
court when repelled from the court house by the Shays 
men, and where as president of the United States, 
Washington took breakfast five years after he congrat- 
ulated himself that he had gone forever into the 
quiet retreat of private life ; judging from outward 
indications, I say, I think it can have prospered but 
indifferently under some of its modern metamorphoses. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XL 

Mr. Editoi' : — It was the remark of my father that 
the old " United States Arms" was a favorite resort of 
travellers ; though many found accommodations at 
the other public houses. Previous to the year 17831 
people travelled in their own private carriages ; those 
who travelled at all ; and consequently good inns, at 
short intervals on the great roads were more numerous 
and more necessary than they now are. In twelve 
hours the traveller nvd\ now journey from New York 
to Philadelphia. My grandfather went once to Phila- 
delphia, as I have heard my father say, in company 
with the mail carrier, and returned with him. It 
must have been a century ago, at least. They were 
three weeks on the road, when going, and the same 
length of time when returning ; so that it then took 
six weeks to make the out and in journey, which in 
these davs of steam, can be made in but little more 



carl's tour in main street. 79 

than twenty-four hours. It was about twenty years 
afterward that a regular stage was established between 
Boston and New York, by a Boston gentleman of the 
name of Brown. His running time from city to city 
was fixed at thirteen days, and the stages left each city 
once in two weeks. But it met with so little encour- 
agement that it w^as soon discontinued ; and the mails 
were carried, as before, in saddle bags on ho>rseback. 
Two of the post-riders, my father said, he well 
remembered. I think their names were Hyde and 
Adams ; their route was between Boston and Hart- 
ford ; and when coming into town it was their 
custom to blow their post-horns, to notify the people 
of their coming. They stopped at the "United States 
Arms," and carried their saddle bags to Isaiah 
Thomas's office, for him to change the mails. 

It was on the return of peace in 17S3, that the 
project of a line of stages between Boston and New 
York w^as revived by Levi Pease and Reuben Sikes of 
Connecticut. Their starting point in Boston w^as the 
old " Lamb" tavern wdiich stood in close proximity 
with the " Lion," if I remember rightly what was 
told me, on the spot, 1 believe, now occupied by 
the " Adams House." They commenced with light 



8o carl's tour in main street. 

wagons ; running the first day from Boston to North- 
borough ; the second day to Brookfield ; and occu- 
pying two days more to Hartford. From what my 
father told me of Mr. Pease and Mr. Sikes, I 
should infer that they were men of energy and enter- 
prise ; and if I am not in error, they in time had 
regular lines of coaches running all the way from 
Boston to Savannah in Georgia. Mr. Sikes was the 
landlord of the Exchange Coffee House for many 
years ; and in that capacity, as well as an owner and 
manager of numerous lines of stages that run between 
Worcester and Boston, Hartford, etc., his history is 
part of the history of our Main street. 

Passing by the Exchange Coftee House, we came 
to the building which has been long known as the old 
Green Store* ; and my father said that when he vv^as 
a boy he had a pair of corduroy pants and a fustian 
jacket, which was manufactured in that building. 
My recollection is that it was in the latter part of the 
revolution w^hen it was thought worth the while to 
attempt the experiment of manufacturing cloths like 
some of the coarse articles that had formerly been im- 
ported from England. Some of the prominent men 

*Where Parker's Block now stands. 



carl's tour in main street. 8 1 

of the time associated together, and erected a factory, 
and put into it some rude machinery for carding and 
spinning. The factory stood upon Mill Brook, on or 
near the site where the School street mills now stand. 
They prospered indifferently well for several years, 
until the restoration of friendly relations between the 
United States and England enabled the country to 
supply itself with manufactured goods cheaper than it 
could manufacture them. The manufacture of Wor- 
cester corduroys and fustians declined, and w^as finally 
abandoned. The factory \vas shoved off its founda- 
tions, moved up to Main street, and, if I remember 
rightly, vs^as converted into a store, and long occupied 
for the purposes of trade. I have never known much 
of the building or its occupants ; but I fear that some 
have "spun yarns" there, and woven "corduroys" 
w^hile on their way home, whose fate might have been 
better than it has been if the old " Green Store" had 
always remained a corduroy and fustian factory ; for 
although I have not been in the building for many 
years, and should be unable to frame an indictment 
against it, I have often seen signs about it, indicative 
of the admonition that the last days of that factory 
are worse than the Jirst. 
6 



82 carl's tour in main street. 

Upon the principle of the association of ideas, I 
am reminded that the Maine Liquor Law is no nov- 
elty in Massachusetts, as many suppose that it is. It 
has fallen under my observation that the General 
Court, more than one hundred years ago, passed an 
act imposing a severe tax upon the consumption of 
spirituous liquors and wines, and compelling every 
householder, under a heavy penalty, to make oath, to 
the excise man, of the amount of each article consumed 
in his house. That was a stringent law, I confess ; 
but I opine that the court cared more for the revenue 
it expected to derive, through the agency of the law, 
than for the morals of the community. Shirley w^as 
governor at that time ; and he refused to sign the bill. 
It was printed for general information ; and the town 
of Worcester, at a meeting held on the 2d day of Sep- 
tember, 1754, voted that the bill ought not to become 
a law ; and they instructed their representative, John 
Chandler, to oppose its enactment. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Ml'. Editor: — Whoever knew our Main street 
twenty years ago, will remember that nearly opposite 
the Exchange Coffee House, and next south of the 
First Unitarian Church, there stood a large square 
house, a little angling with the street, with a large 
yard in front, filled with flowers, and a spacious fruit 
orchard in the rear. There was also upon the front 
of the lot a long two-story wooden building which 
had once been a store, and was then occupied for 
mechanical purposes. If I remember aright, my fa- 
ther told me that the National yEgis w^as at one time 
printed in that building. But the march of improve- 
ment has been there, and I can see nothing there now 
which I saw then, except a few scattered fruit trees, 
which were probably saved for what they are instead 
of what they have been. I remember the owner and 
occupant ; an aged and deaf man. Dr. Oliver Fiske. 
My father knew him well, and spoke to him at his 



84 carl's tour in main street. 

gate as he passed by. He had in his hand a basket of 
fruit which he had been picking ; and he gave me 
some delicious pears and apples as specimens of the 
fine varieties which it had been his pleasure to cul- 
tivate more extensively than at any time they had 
been cultivated by any other individual in this region. 
Modern improvement is a great leveller. It spares 
neither taste nor past memories, in its all-grasping 
struggle for the profits of speculation and trade. State 
street now^ runs where stood but a few years ago Dr. 
Fiske's hearthstone. Harvard street crosses through 
his orchard ; and houses now occupy his fruit grounds, 
which, I dare say, never entered into the good doc- 
tor's most fanciful dreams. " One generation builds, 
and another teareth down." 

It was the remark of my father, I remember, that 
Dr. Fiske had long been one of the most prominent 
men of Worcester ; and that when he was only eigh- 
teen years old he left his father's parsonage in Brook- 
field, and enlisted into the Army of the Revolution, 
and marched to West Point ; not as young gentlemen 
go to West Point in these times of peace, to play the 
soldier and get an education at the public expense, 
but to endure the rigors, the hardships, and the perils 



carl's tour in main street. 85 

of war. After the war was over, young Fiske — for 
he could not have been more than one and twenty at 
that time — entered Harvard College, where I find by 
reference to the college catalogue, (which happens to 
be lying near me as I write this on my hat), that he 
graduated in 17S7. My father told me also, that while 
the doctor was in college, his "war spirit" would 
sometimes break over the bounds of restraint ; that he 
was captain of a military organization among the col- 
lege boys ; and that when the Shays party undertook 
to stop the courts at Concord, the college company, 
w^ith Fiske for captain,* volunteered their services to 
march up there from Cambridge, in aid of the govern- 
ment ; and that there was a great tumult among the 
boys when the college officers interfered and put a 
veto on their quixotism. When the winter vacation 
came, young Fiske took charge of a district school a 
few miles from the college ; and while enacting the 
part of a village pedagogue, news came to him of the 
mustering of the Shays men in Worcester. Turning 
over his school to one of his college fellows, Fiske 
came post-haste to Worcester, to take a part in the 



*We think the writer is mistaken; and that Fiske was lieutenant and not cap- 
tain of the college company. — Ed. 



86 carl's tour in main street. 

conflict which seemed impending between the state 
government and its opponents. On arriving in Wor- 
cester, he found that the Shays men had retreated to 
the Connecticut river ; and that leaving Gen. Warner 
here with one regiment of soldiers, for the protection 
of the court, Gen. Lincoln, with the main body of the 
army, had set off on a march to join Gen. Shepherd 
at Springfield, for the protection, not only of the 
courts there, but of the military stores, which it 
was supposed the Shays men would attempt to take. 
Young Fiske pushed on after them ; and overtaking 
them on Leicester hill, he entered the ranks, and 
marched by his father's house in pursuit of the enemy. 
But fortunately he encountered no enemy to expend 
his surplus patriotism upon. Having completed his 
collegiate and medical education he located himself in 
Worcester, where he had a very considerable practice 
as a physician. He was, my father remarked, a man 
of a great deal of mental activity ; took a deep interest 
in all associations and movements for public improve- 
ment ; and w^ithal was considerable of a politician ; 
at one time holding a commission as a special justice 
of the court of common pleas ; at another, and for 
several years in succession, being one of the govern- 



carl's tour in main street. 87 

or's council ; and at a later period of his life, filling the 
office of register of deeds. His deafness must have 
been a great misfortune to him, as its tendency must 
have been to abridge that activity of professional, so- 
cial and civil life, for which he must have had many 
prominent qualifications. Although he died but a 
few years ago, I apprehend that so great have been 
the changes in our population, there must be many 
amoncr us at this dav, to whom this brief sketch 
will seem to be more the product of fancy than of 
historical fact. 

As we passed away from Dr. Fiske's we came to 
a spot on the Court Hill road that was then, as it now 
is, canopied with the branches of magnificient elms ; 
so thick that the noonday sun never falls upon the 
ground while the foliage is on the trees. In such a 
town home for woodland nymphs I was led to make 
the inquiry of my father, "Who was it that set out 
the beautiful trees that line Main Street?" His reply 
was that he had always understood that the principal 
mover in the matter was Dr. Elijah Dix. If my 
memory of his remarks be true, Dr. Dix occupied the 
house* in front of which those four magnificient elms 

*The site of this house is now occupied by the residence of F. H. Dewey. 



8S carl's tour in main street. 

stood, and that he it was who placed them there in 
the early part of his residence in Worcester. I regret 
deeply that an\^ of these " ancient landmarks" should 
be obliged to give place to the passion for money- 
making, which seems to rule society with a terrific 
earnestness. But such is the fact ; and I apprehend 
that the time is not far distant when there will not be 
a tree standing In Main street, from one end to the 
other. Pavements are laid without any apparent 
consideration for the life of the trees ; and in some 
instances the propensity of the abutters, on the street, 
to appropriate, not only every part of their own land, 
but much of what belongs to the public, has crowded 
the trees beyond the sidewalks, and precluded the 
possibility of their occupying what has been perverted 
to coal-holes and other store conveniences. It is, in 
my view, a desecration of our Main street which 
ought never to have been permitted, and whose fur- 
ther progress the people ought to stay with a strong 
hand. 

Dr. Dix, my father remarked, was a man of a 
scientific taste. He opened a medicine store near his 
house, as was not uncommon with the physicians of 
the last century ; and there, although cliemistry was 



carl's tour in main street. 89 

then in its infancy compared to what it now is as a 
science, the doctor acquired a taste for compounding 
medicines, and chemical experiments, which induced 
him to visit Europe, for the attainment of knowledge, 
and for procuring the facilities for the prosecution of 
his scientific pursuits. After his return from Europe 
he inoved from Worcester to Boston, where he en- 
gaged extensively in the sale of drugs and medicines, 
applying the knowledge he had acquired abroad to a 
chemical preparation of many of the articles he sold. 
As a prominent citizen of the town, which he put 
forth his taste and energy to adorn, during the latter 
part of the last century. Dr. Dix should have a grate- 
ful remembrance by our citizens ; for I am thinking 
that a people do honor to themselves w^hen they do 
honor to their benefactors. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Ml'. Editor: — "And this is Granite Row," said 
my father, as we came to the block which at this time 
has almost ceased to bear the name. It had been 
erected a few years before by the late Hon. Daniel 
Waldo, on the spot, as I was informed, which had 
been long occupied by a less pretending building, and 
where by a long course of probity in dealing he made 
substantial additions to a fortune, considerable for his 
time, which had descended to him from his father. 
" Granite Row," which was designed to eclipse a 
block upon the opposite side of the street, and which 
in some degree measures what even a third of a cen- 
tury ago was regarded as bordering on the expensive, 
was then the centre of trade of Worcester. There 
were, it is true, twenty years age, stores scattered in 
other parts of the town, but in " Granite Row," and 
in the stores opposite to it, nearly the whole dry-goods 



CARl/S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 9I 

trade of the town was carried on. I see now but one 
sign remaining, of all those that then indicated the 
trade of that portion of the town ; and that belongs to 
the worthy gentleman* who kept then, as he keeps 
now, a hardware store in the south end of " Granite 
Row." The men of that day are gone, I scarcely 
know where. Some of them, through a constant 
repetition of their names in the columns of the weekly 
newspapers, made themselves known over the whole 
country, and profited by the trade wdiich they at- 
tracted. 

As we passed "Granite Row," I remember that 
my father pointed to the entrance into the chamber 
where two of the newspapers of the town were then 
printed. One of them w^as the Massachusetts Teo- 
man ; whose name, I suppose, indicated something of 
its character ; and the other, the Worcester County 
Republican^ the organ of the "fierce democracy" 
which commenced cutting and thrusting its way into 
notoriety about the time that Gen. Jackson applied 
his iron nerves to the administration of the g-overn- 
ment. My father spoke of the editor of the Teoi7tan 
as a gentleman for whose memory he cherished the 

*Henry W. Miller. Armsby Building covers a part of the site of Granite Row_ 



92 carl's tour in main street. 

most kindly interest. It was Austin Denny ; a native 
of Worcester, who died not lonf^ before, at the age of 
thirty-five. He had had a colleo'e education, and had 
been admitted to the bar. After officiating as editor 
of the Spy for three or four years, he established 
the yeoman^ w^hich he published some seven years, 
until death relieved him from physical sufferings with 
which he had long been afflicted. It was the remark 
of my flither, that "Austin, (as he always familiarly 
spoke of him), was not a brilliant or flashy writer; 
but was distinguished for candor, clearness and good 
common sense." The Teotnan survived its editor 
two or three years when it was merged into the ^gis. 
Of the Republican^ I never had an intimate knowl- 
edge, and scarcely know its fate. Perhaps, Mr. 
Editor, you can enlighten those who have interest 
enough in the matter to raise the question. 

Opposite " Granite Row," at the time I made my 
tour, a short, thick-set Frenchman kept a candy shop, 
which we boys were wont to patronize, and whose 
stories delighted me so much that I fear my puny 
exchequer suffered more from his humor than under 
other circumstances it would have done. His name I 
remember from a frequent perusal of the sign over his 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 93 

door, was Alexander Votier ; and in his younger days 
he had served as a soldier in the armies of " Le 
Grand Napoleon ;" of whom he had many stories to 
tell — some of which might have been true, and some 
of which might have been a little deficient in the first 
element of history. The old soldier had brought with 
him from the wars a penchant for " liquid fire," which 
when freely indulged in, " steals away the brain." 
Sitting behind his counter one warm summer evening, 
dosing in partial obliviousness, in popped a w^ag of a 
clerk from a neighboring store, disguised as a stran- 
ger, with the question : " Have you any chestnuts.^" 

" I vill see for de chestnut !" and after fumbling in 
all quarters he caine to the conclusion that " de chest- 
nut be all sold and gone." 

" Sorry for it !" said the wag, "for I am in great 
want of a few." Then walking out, he went and 
changed his dress, and returning found Votier with 
head down again upon the counter, and again half 
oblivious of what was passing around him. Chang- 
ing his voice, the clerk again made the inquiry : 
" Have you any chestnuts.^" 

" I am very sorr}^, but de chestnut be all gone. I 
vill have some more ver' soon." 



94 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

Two or three times more the same application 
was repeated, under different disguises in the course 
of the evening ; and the same half-stupified answer 
given ; with the addition of, " Sorry dat I have got no 
chestnut, for everybody be wanting de chestnut dis 
evening." 

"Have you any chestnuts this evening.'^ Mr. Vo- 
tier.^" was the question which the merry clerk put as 
he entered the shop the last time. Returning con- 
sciousness let the light into the shopman's mind that 
his numerous customers for chestnuts were all one 
and the same individual ; and, peeping up over his 
counter, the quondam soldier of Napoleon soon sent 
the young rogue tittering from the shop, with the 
benediction : 

"You keep coming in here asking for de chestnut 
when you know dere is no chestnut. Dis is not de 
time of de year for de chestnut, and you knows it veil 
enough ; and yet you come in here two, tree, six 
time, asking for de chestnut, chestnut. You go to 

, and get you chestnut ! You better man as you 

tink you are, by gar ! and if you dont behave yourself 
you'll soon get you chestnut a/l 7'eady roasted^ by 
gar !" 



cakl's tour in main street. 95 

It was remarked by my father, that when the two- 
story brick block, opposite " Granite Row," which 
was called " Goddard's Row," was completed, the 
occupants had a grand illumination the first night 
they opened their stores. Every window was bril- 
liantly lighted, and the crowd of people, that was 
present, was so large that it seemed to him that the 
whole town w^as there. Look upon that building, 
and then look upon the splendid blocks that were 
erected in 1854, and you have the materials for a 
comparison of the taste wdiich then prevailed, and 
that which prevails now. I have a theory of my own 
upon the subject ; but this is not the occasion for me 
to moralize. 

Next south of "Granite Row" stood twenty years 
ago, as now, what, when it was new, w\is known as 
** Waldo Church."* "They have got pretty much 
over their fight ;" said my father, as we passed by it ; 
and he then told me what he meant by the remark. 

It seems hardly credible, at this day, that there 
could have been so much feeling excited as it seems 
there was between that church and the Old South 
Church, from which it was an offset, The circum- 

*Central Church, now remodelled for business uses. 



96 carl's tour in main street. 

stances, as my father related them to me, have not 
been treasured up by me as they would have been if it 
had been a contest in which I take more interest than 
I do in " the wars of Christians ;" but I presume that 
its history has been written, and may be found in 
the records of those times. It was about the year 
18 1 8 or 1 819, that the south parish had settled a 
new minister, the Rev. Charles A. Goodrich. The 
church became divided in consequence. Several of 
the members absented themselves from the commun- 
ion ; and consequently were the objects of complaint ; 
and, consequently again, they had their friends and 
sympathizers ; and the more the fire was stirred, the 
more it burned. It resulted in the organization of 
the " Calvinist Church ;" which held its meetings in 
the court house until 1S23. In the mean time the 
Hon. Daniel Waldo had erected a meeting-house at 
his own expense, which cost if I am not mistaken, 
about $15,000. He subsequently gave it to the so- 
ciety, with the addition of $5000 in money, as a fund 
for the payment, in part, of the parish expenses. The 
house was dedicated, and Rev. Loammi Ives Hoadly 
was ordained, at one and the same time ; and my 
father remarked that there had been so much excite- 



carl's tour in main street. 97 

ment about the division that a great concourse of 
people was present on the occasion. He said that 
they had tried several candidates, before they obtained 
one that suited them ; and I remember that he spoke 
in hieh terms of one of them, Rev. Thomas J. Mur- 
doch, preferring him to Mr. Hoadly. He said that 
Mr. Murdoch was a solid, substantial man ; above 
the ordinary size, and of dark complexion ; but had 
not quite so much of the ^^ suaviter hi modo^'' and 
not quite so much fire and zeal as some of the ladies 
of the parish desired to see in their preacher. Mr. 
Hoadly's salary was fixed at $Soo the year ; and that 
was considered quite liberal for the times. 

For several years there was a feeling of bitterness 
between the two churches ; but as the town grew in 
size, the feeling of acrimony grew less, and finally 
died out. One of my earliest recollections of that 
church, is, that after the society came into possession 
of it, they greatly enlarged it by cutting it into four 
quarters, moving the quarters apart, and filling m 
between them, lengthwise and crosswise ; and pro- 
vidino- for what has become one of the largest and 
most respectable religious societies of the city. It 
does not comport with my purpose, in writing these 

7 



^S carl's tour in main street. 

papers, to f raise the livhig. If it did, I should have 
a few words of praise for the fine scholar, the excel- 
lent citizen, and the consistent and liberal Christian, 
who now fills, with so much acceptance to his people, 
the pastorate of what was once known as ' ' Waldo 
Church,"* 

Yours, 

CARL. 



*Rev. Dr. Sweetser. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

J/r. Editor: — As I was walking in Main street 
the other day, I came up behind two of our aged and 
most respectable citizens ; and heard one of them ask 
the other: '^Who do you suppose that Carl of the 
Palladium is?" Of course I "pricked up my ears," 
and walked slowly behind them. The answer was : 
" I can not conjecture. I have thought of many per- 
sons, but am not able to fix on any one in particular 
as the writer." They both seemed anxious to know 
the humble individual who at that moment was so 
near to them that he could have touched them with 
his cane if he had had a cane. " His articles are very 
interesting," said one of them, " as they bring up to 
view scenes and persons that we were once familiar 
with." "Yes," said the other, "they do throw us 
back to times when Worcester was a very diflerent 



loo carl's tour in main street. 

place from what it now is." And as the continuation 
of his remark was rather more complimentary to my- 
self than I care to listen to, I passed on, and walked 
away from them, lest the interest I took in their 
conversation might unfortunately betray me into an 
exposure of my secret. 

You will remember, Mr. Editor, that I do not 
give the precise time of my tour in Main street. It 
w^as about twenty years ago ; and that is as explicit 
as I choose to be upon the matter. At that time the 
" Spy Printing Office'' was the sign upon the build- 
ing next south of the ''Waldo Church." Messrs. 
Earle & Colton, if my memory serves me, were then 
the publishers. The Spy was then a valiant cham- 
pion of whigism and the whig party, in the state and 
in the nation ; and for that reason, as well as for its 
age, and the tact and ability with which it was con- 
ducted, it had an extensive circulation among the 
people. My father said that he had been a constant 
reader of the Spy for a long series of years ; and he 
gave me a running history of the paper. I cannot 
presume to repeat all its details ; and I have not access 
to a file of the paper to correct my recollections. 
I remember that he said that his old friend Isaiah 



CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. lOI 

Thomas started the Spy in Boston, four or five years 
before the breaking out of the War of the Revolution ; 
and that immediately after the battle of Lexington, 
Mr. Thomas found himself unable to speak in Boston, 
(vsdiich was then in the hands of the British,) with 
the freedom with which he desired to speak of the 
action of the government ; and therefore, at the solici- 
tation of Col. Timothy Bigelow, — the patriot black- 
smith, whose love affair I chronicled in a former 
chapter — and other patriotic men, he moved the Spy 
from Boston to Worcester.* It was the acknowledged 
organ of the whigs of the Revolution ; and the leading 
men of that party made it a medium of communicating 
their sentiments to the people upon the crisis that was 
then impending. I may be in error, but my recollec- 
tion is that my father said that when the Spy was first 
issued in Worcester, it was from a small building on 
Lincoln street, near to the " Hancock Arms" hotel ; 
and that it was there that Mr. Thomas leased it for a 
year to Messrs. Stearns & Bigelow, who published the 
paper from 177^ '^^ ^111 1 while Mr. Thomas was 
closing up his business in Boston, Salem, etc., pre- 
paratory^ to a permanent residence in Worcester. 

*It was moved to Worcester just before the battle of Lexington. 



I03 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

Mr. Stearns was a young lawyer who had just 
before opened an office in Worcester. It is said that 
he was a ready writer ; and famed for his wit. Mr. 
Bigelow was also a lawyer ; and, if I am not misin- 
formed, he held the office of county attorney after the 
close of the Revolutionary War. After conducting 
the paper for a year they gave it up to a Mr. Haswell ; 
and in 1778 he returned it to Mr. Thomas, who con- 
tinued the publication, in connection with his other 
business, for a period of some twenty-five years. It 
is not my purpose to write a history of the Spy ; for 
that can be done, when necessary, by my respected 
friend, the senior publisher,* who has been its editor 
for nearly one third of a century. May his shadow 
never be thinner I I remember well how he looked 
that day as my father and I passed by on our w^ay to 
the cattle-show. He was standing in his office door, 
with a segar in his mouth, examining some apples 
which a countryman was showing him in a basket; 
and by his feet stood a box which appeared to be 
filled with beautiful sea-shells. 

"This is the Baldwin place," remarked my father, 
as we came to the house next south of the Spy office, 

*John Milton Earle. 



carl's tour in main street. 103 

and which is now in the possession of one* of the 
venerable race of men that walked these streets, and 
guided the destinies of our city when it was an un- 
pretending hamlet. Nathan Baldwin, my father told 
me, was for a long time Register of Deeds for the 
county of Worcester. Old John Adams speaks of 
him, in one of his letters, as one of the three "notable 
disputants" in a religious controversy which raged in 
the town when he came to Worcester to live in 1755. 
I have seen his name in the records of the times as 
one of the selectmen of the town in 1770, and its town 
clerk from 1775 to 1778. He was the associate of 
Col. Bigelow and the other patriots of the day ; and 
being a ready and forcible writer, as well as "notable 
disputant," the task was assigned to him of drawing 
up most of the documents which the town had occa- 
sion to use, before and during the Revolution, in 
the form of instructions to the representatives in the 
General Court, and protests against the arbitrary as- 
sumptions and action of the crown. It was while the 
war was in its progress that the town passed a series 
of resolves against speculations in produce and other 

^William Eaton, whose daughter, Miss Sally Chadwick Eaton, died there in 
June, 1887, aged 86. This house at the corner of Main and George streets, is 
now (1889) the oldest building in Worcester. 



I04 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

goods. I presume they were from Baldwin's pen ; 
and they speak of them as " an augmented number of 
locusts and cajiker-tuorms^ in human form, who have 
increased and proceeded along the road of plunder, 
until they have become obviously formidable, and 
their contagious influence dangerously prevalent — 
pestilential mushrooms of trade, which have come up 
in the night of public calamity, and ought to perish 
in the same night." 

Baldwin was also one of the founders and leading 
spirits of the Political Society, a secret association of 
the prominent men of Worcester, which existed in the 
time of the Revolution, and rendered essential aid to 
the patriot cause by combining public sentiment, and 
giving direction and force to public opinion while the 
war was In progress. He died shortly after the peace 
of 1 7S3 ; I have not the materials for an extended me- 
moir of the man. He was evidently a man of talent, 
of intellectual force and moral courage. From the 
Adams letter I infer that by the prevailing religious 
denomination of the day, Baldwin was considered 
skeptical in his religious belief. Perhaps some of our 
citizens of to-day would feel a more lively Interest in 
the man if they knew that as long ago as 1767? iii 



CARl/s TOUR IN MAIN STREET. IO5 

penning- instructions to the representative of that year, 
he used this remarkable expression: — "That you 
use your influence to obtain a hiw to put an end 
to that unchristian and impolitic practice of making 
slaves of the human species in this province." And 
such was the language of a citizen of Worcester, 
nearly a century ago ; by whose last resting place two 
generations of men have passed, and a third is now^ in 
its progress. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Mr. Editor : — At the time I made my tour, there 
stood, as it stands now, on the east side of Main 
street, nearly opposite the " Waldo Church," an inn, 
hotel, tavern or public house, bearing the simple, and 
in those times, rather cold name of " Temperance 
House."* It was kept by Eleazer Porter, afterwards 
of the American House. " It used to be called the 
Blackstone Hotel," said my father, " in compliment 
to the Blackstone Canal ;" which had been opened a 
few years before, from Worcester to Providence. It 
was not long- afterwards that Main street w^as thrown 
into a prodigious excitement bv the taking down of 
all the tavern signs in town, and the fastening up of 
the doors of all the public houses except the Temp- 
perance House. On account of some refusal or delay 
to grant the customary license, the publicans^ good 

*This was at the corner of Thomas street. 



carl's tour in main strket. 107 

souls, suddenly resolved that there should be "no 
more cakes and ale," nor rest for the weary traveller. 
Some travellers, In horror of a thing to vs^hich they 
were so unaccustomed as temperance, pertinaciously 
refused to eat, drink, or sleep in a temperance hotel, 
and sought and found refuge in private dwellings. 
While the public houses were thus in a state of " sus- 
pended animation," there was a fever of the public 
mind. Men took sides, and "from words thev almost 
came to blows." I remember that one day as I was 
walking with my father, we came to a little knot of 
citizens wdio were standing not far from the Temper- 
ance House, in hot disputation about the new order 
of things. My father was appealed to for his opinion ; 
and while he w^as giving it, up came the good-hu- 
mored, quick-w itted librarian of the Antiquarian Hall 
(whom I spoke of particularlv in a former chapter), 
and after listening for a moment, till there was a 
slight cessation of the "war of words," he peered 
at them over one corner of his spectacles, with the 
declaration: — " 'Ah, ye wicked and adulterous gen- 
eration that seeketh after a sign ! But no sign shall 
be given unto you' — except that of Eleazer of the 
Temperance House !" His good nature, thus oppor- 



io8 carl's tour in main street. 

tunely exhibited, took all the starch of anger out of 
the hot disputants ; and they quietly dispersed. Since 
that day the old Blackstone Hotel has been called the 
Eagle Hotel and the Franklin House, and I know not 
what else ; but nev-er has it looked so trim, tidy and 
inviting to me, as when it put out the unassuming 
sign of the "Temperance House." 

A few rods farther south we came to the residence 
of the late Rev. Dr. Bancroft.* I alluded to him in 
my chapter on the church of the second parish, of 
which he was so long the respected pastor. I spoke 
of him, venerable in appearance, as he seemed to me 
the morning we passed him standing upon the steps 
of his church ; and as I remembered him performing 
the services of the sanctuary. I remember of him 
nothing but his old age, for his youth and manhood 
were before my day. Such brief memorials of him 
as have come under my notice, ought to be combined 
and elaborated, by some friendly hand, into an ex- 
tended biography. It is now nearly seventy years 
since he was ordained in Worcester ; and had he lived 
to the loth of November next, his '^ life's span" would 
have measured loo years. He was a collegian at 

♦Between Thomas and Central streets. 



carl's tour in main street. 109 

Cambridge when the War of the Revolution broke 
out ; studied theology in his native town of Reading, 
with the Rev. Mr. Haven, its minister ; and first 
came to Worcester in the autumn of 17S3, to supply a 
temporary vacancy in the Old South Church, occa- 
sioned by the sickness of the Rev. Mr. Maccarty. 
On his death in the summer following, Mr. Bancroft 
was invited to return to Worcester and supply the 
pulpit again. But it was then discovered that there 
w^ere differences of religious opinion in the church 
that disturbed the harmonv of its action. Mr. Ban- 
croft was unable to respond to the application until 
autumn. He then preached again for a few Sundays. 
As an evidence of the strengfth of the aversion that 
was felt in those times to a division of a church, it 
may be stated that a " compromise" was thought of, 
and deliberately proposed. It was to compromise all 
difficulties by settling two ministers — one for each 
party — the salaries of both to be paid from the parish 
treasury. Whether they were to " ride and tie" in 
preaching, or preach dialogues, I do not learn. But 
the proposition was not sustained. 

The phrase, " ride and tie," which in these days 
of steam has well nigh fallen into disuse, had its ori- 



no CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

gin in this way. Two travellers would go a journey 
horseback, with only one horse for both. One would 
ride two or three miles, and then dismount, hitch the 
horse by the wayside, and walk on. His fellow- 
traveller — for it would be an absurdity to call him a 
companion — would mount the horse when he came 
up to him ; and this alternation gave origin to the 
phrase, " ride and tie." It has given place to a new 
set of phrases that may be designated not inaptly as 
the literature of railroads. 

The controversy ended, as all such controversies 
usually do end, in a separation, A new church w^as 
formed, and Mr. Bancroft was duly established as its 
pastor. The covenant adopted at the time is a curi- 
osity in its way, and inculcates the liberal and catholic 
spirit with which the young pastor entered upon his 
duties. I have met w^ith nothing in its day that will 
compare with it, and therefore, Mr. Editor, I beg to 
trespass so far upon your indulgence, as to ask you to 
copy it. It is thus : — 

*' In the first place, w^e humbly renew the dedi- 
cation of ourselves and offspring to the great God, 
who is over all, blessed for ever. 

And we do hereby profess our firm belief of the 
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. 



CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET, III 

And taking them as our sole and sufficient rule of 
faith and practice, we do covenant to and with each 
other, that we will walk together as a Christian Soci- 
ety in the faith and order of the Gospel. And we do 
hereby engage, as far as in our power, for all under 
our cai'e, that we will live as true disciples of Jesus 
Christ, in all good carriage and behaviour, -both to- 
wards God and man. Professing ourselves to be 
in charity with all men who love Jesus Christ in sin- 
cerity and truth. All this we engage faithfully to 
perform, by divine assistance, for which we are en- 
couraged to hope, relying on the mediation of Jesus 
Christ for the pardon of our manifold sins, and pray- 
ing the God of all grace, through Him, to strengthen 
and enable us to keep this, our covenant, inviolate, 
and to establish and settle us, that at the second com- 
ing of Jesus, we may appear before his presence with 
exceeding joy." 

As there can be no Episcopalian church without 
a bishops so, I suppose, Mr. Editor, there can be 
no Congregational church without a covenant. This 
v\^as certainly a rare specimen for the times. It is not 
for me to cavil with it. It was the remark of my 
father, that " Dr. Bancroft professed no more than 
he believed, and practised all he professed." "No 
man," said he, "ever identified himself with the in- 
terests of a place more closely than he did with those 
of the town of Worcester. He was always ready with 
a good word for every good work." And I incline 



112 CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

to the belief that every old citizen of Worcester, 
holds to the same opinion that my father expressed ; 
whether that good work was the education of the 
rising generation, the promotion of morality, or any 
public improvement. He lived beloved, and died — a 
few years ago — universally respected, by men of every 
variety of faith and worship. His wife was a daugh- 
ter of John Chandler, a Judge of one of the courts. 

My father was a great admirer of Gen. Washing- 
ton, and was accustomed to speak often of what was 
done when Washington visited Worcester, the first 
year of his presidency ; and I have heard him speak 
in glowing terms of a discriminating eulogy which 
Dr. Bancroft delivered in the Old South Church, at 
the request of the town, on the return of the anniver- 
sary of Washington's birthday, next after his decease. 
As he died on the 14th of December, 1799? the eulogy 
must have been delivered on the 23d of February, 
iSoo. He had also a copy of a "Life of Washing- 
ton," written by Dr. Bancroft, which he enjoined on 
me to read often, for the example it presented, and 
the excellent sentiments it inculcated. 

The unassuming residence of the reverend guide 
of the second church, for so long a period, has seen a 



CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. II3 

dIfFerent race of occupants since he yielded to the 
inexorable demands of mortality. His study — where 
he read, and thought, and wrote — where so many 
pure aspirations went forth after that perfection which 
the Christian hopes for himself and for all — where he 
counselled with the afflicted, the old and the young — 
that study is now a place of daily trade, where segars 
and sugar candy, peppermints and peanuts, small 
beer and sundries are retailed, alike to the just and the 
unjust. It is a sad thought to me, that there was 
none of the "kith and kin," the parish or the priest- 
hood, to save, even for a few short years, the good 
old man's hearthstone from such a desecration. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Mr. Editor: — From an old newspaper, I learn 
that the first boy born in Worcester, was Adonijah 
Rice. There have been a great many boys born here 
since. His father was Jonas Rice, who came here, 
(the record says), in October, 1713, from the good 
town of Marlborough. Little Adonijah first opened 
his eyes, (again the record says), on the 7th of No- 
vember, 1 714, about 13 months after his father and 
mother took up their abode on Sagatabscot Hill, near 
the extensive meadows, that constitute a pleasant land- 
scape, between the old roads leading to Grafton and 
Sutton. Now little Adonijah's father Jonas was un- 
doubtedly a man of some education, and felt the 
importance, to the state, as well as to individuals, of 
giving his boy, and other boys, as good an education 
as the times and circumstances would periTiit ; for I 



CARI. S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. II5 

find that when little Adonijah had reached his twelfth 
year, the town employed his father, Jonas, in the 
capacity of a school teacher. They set him to work 
in April, and kept him employed until December, 
with such vacations only as. were necessary to keep up 
the agricultural operations of the settlement. How 
good an education little Adonijah obtained, I do not 
know ; for I find no mention of him after his birth, 
except that he served his countrv as a soldier, in the 
old French wars, and moved to Vermont, where he 
died an old man about the commencement of this 
century. 

I fear that our forefathers did not engage in the 
business of education with so much zeal as they ought 
to have done ; for it appears that little Adonijah's 
father Jonas did not "play the pedagogue" so much 
from choice as from necessity ; for the town hired him 
"to teach such children and youth, as any of the in- 
habitants shall send to him, to read and write, as the 
lazv directs.'''' And 1 regret, Mr. Editor, that the 
truth of history requires me to state that tlie town did 
not set little Adonijah's father Jonas to work as a 
pedagogue until the grand jury had made a formal 
presentation of their negligence. 



ii6 carl's tour in main street. 

Twenty years ago, there stood a two-story wooden 
school house on the west side of Main street, nearly 
opposite the Bancroft house.* There w^as kept in it, 
at that time, a high school for girls, with two or three 
other schools of lower grades. At the same time 
there was a brick house on Thomas street, where there 
was a classical school, and also a high school for boys. 
Since that day, that house has been taken down, and 
rebuilt at the junction of Pine street with Pine Mead- 
ow road ; and the large Thomas School house has 
been erected in its place. This new school house, 
denominated the Centre School house, was built on 
the lot next north of the old Centre house ; and on 
account of the increase of business in Main street, has 
been nearly abandoned for school purposes ; and be- 
fore long will be given up wholly to the purposes of 
trade. 

As we came to the Centre School house, my father 
said that he remembered well the first schools that 
were opened in that house. He said that after the 
War of the Revolution was over, old Gov. Lincoln, 
Dr. Dix, Dr. Green, and other prominent men of the 
town, joined together for the purpose of establishing 

♦Site of the Chadwick Building. 



carl's tour in main street. 117 

a school of a high order, and built the house on 
the front of the lot. Master Payson, he said, taught 
in the upper rooin what was called "The Seminary," 
an academy for the higher branches of education ; 
and master Brown taught in the same building 
a school for the ordinary English branches. Both 
schools flourished finely for several years ; both hav- 
ing occasionally public exhibitions, in the getting up 
of wdiich there was a generous rivalry on the part of 
both pupils and teachers. But after about a dozen 
years of success, the school went down ; the house 
was sold by auction, and bought up by the town or by 
the centre district. It was then moved to the back 
side of the lot, leaving a pleasant yard in front ; and 
there the voices of many children rung often in my 
ears, luitil it was given up as a school house. It was 
sold not many years ago ; was moved to the front of 
the lot, where it originally stood ; and "another story 
built up at the bottom," as our gardener says of build- 
ings that have been enlarged in that manner ; so that 
where master Payson and master Brown once taught 
Latin and Greek, and mathematics, reading, writing 
and several of the 'ologies, there are now several 
stores at which may be bought teas and molasses. 



ii8 carl's tour in main street. 

codfish and coffee ; toy dolls and minature wagons, 
and penny whistles ; and "laces so fine." [If there 
is any charge for this advertisement, I will pay the 
bill ; for it is as much out of place in a newspaper 
communication, as was the remark of the good dea- 
con in the conference meeting, when he said: — "I 
have no more doubt of the existence of a hell, than I 
have that there are one hundred barrels of flour in my 
store, which I will sell, to any one who wants to buy, 
at $6 the barrel for cash."] 

"It is now about one hundred years ago," my 
father remarked, " that the town voted to erect a 
school house as near the centre of the south half of 
the town as it could be placed." Col. John Chandler 
undertook the task of locating the house. But there 
sprung up a controversy about his report which de- 
layed the erection of the building for several years. 
It was settled at last by building the small house, 
spoken of in a former chapter of this tour, near 
the centre of Main street, in the vicinity of Lincoln 
Square. 

Whether the patriot blacksmith of the Revolution, 
Col. Timothy Bigelow, received any portion of his 
education at this little seminary of learning by the 



carl's tour in main street. 119 

roadside, I am not able to say ; as his family lived in 
the south part of the town, then known as Bogachoag, 
(now Auburn) ; but without doubt his w^ife, Miss 
Anna Andrews, the heiress, received at least a portion 
of her education there, as the school house was nearly 
opposite her father's residence. This humble school 
house, wdiich was regarded of so much consequence 
to the town in its early days, was not given up until 
the " Seminary" came in to take its place. 

How^ great the changes which are made in a cen- 
tury of progress ! Less than ninety years ago there 
were but four school districts in Worcester ; now 
there are fifteen, in which, as I am informed, from 
sixty to seventy teachers are employed. Of course 
there has been a corresponding increase in the ma- 
chinery of education. Instead of the humble edifice 
of 1740, standing in front of the court house, 24 feet 
long, 16 feet wide, and with posts 7 feet high, and 
warmed and ventilated by a large open fire-place, 
the town has now^ several edifices devoted to educa- 
tional purposes, which the " forefathers of the hamlet" 
would have pronounced "palaces of learning," if 
looking down the vista of time they could have seen 
the unpretending town of 1740 changed into the busy, 



I20 CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

thrifty city of 1855, with its " palaces of art," w^here 
industry accumulates wealth, and wealth supplies the 
means of intellectual and moral culture and refine- 
ment. But, Mr. Editor, I must beg leaye to express 
my fears that a comparison of the expenses of educa- 
tion to-day w^ith those of times long gone by, will 
show that the present generation pays much higher for 
what it gets, than yyas paid when Bigelow and others 
receiyed that education which fitted them to fill the 
places they did fill with so much honor to themselves 
and usefulness to the country. I haye a philosophy 
of my own upon this subject ; but it is not the time to 
broach it, farther than to say that in my ^iew our 
schools are, for young minds, too much like hot-beds 
for young plants. They grow large, but they do not 
grow strong. The boy Daniel Webster, among the 
granite hills, attending the district schools less than 
half of the year, and working upon the farm the rest 
of the time, acquired a strength and vigor of mind, 
which he would not have acquired shut up year after 
Axar in a city school, where he gets but few of na- 
ture's glorious teachings, and where, as I have known 
it to happen, the questions have been asked by boys, 
big enough to know better, whether crows were not 



CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 121 

sometimes white as well as black — and whether ap- 
ple trees blossomed in spring or in autumn. 

In this roving account of the Centre School House, 
I fear that I may have awakened the inquiry in some 
mind, whether I ever enjoyed the benefits of any 
school, either in town or country. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Mr, Editor: — As my father and myself, on our 
way south from the centre school house, came to the 
north corner of Central street, "that office (said he), 
was once occupied by my old friend Frank Blake ;'* 
and he gave me some account of the man, his life, his 
peculiarities, and his family connections. 

Central street had at that time but two or three 
houses upon both sides of it. It was the principal 
road from Main street to the Canal basin, and the 
canal stores that stood around it. It was one of my 
early pleasures to go to the basin, and see the boats as 
they came up from Providence laden with flour, corn, 
salt, iron and other heavy articles, with now and then 
a family of prodigiously large wharf rats for passen- 
gers. As the colony is not yet extinct, I think they 



carl's tour in main street. 123 

came here as emigrants, and not as temporary visit- 
ors. Chairs, chairs, everlasting in number, brought 
into town in large loads from the northern parts of the 
county, seemed to me to be the principal loading of 
the boats dow'n the canal. Had railroads never been 
invented, the Blackstone Canal would, in time, have 
done a large and profitable business. But the rail- 
roads took aw^ay its freight ; the basin has been filled 
up to accommodate railroads, foundries, etc. ; and the 
bridge and the store-houses have been superseded by 
the progress of improvement. For a large portion of 
the inhabitants of the Worcester of to-day a canal-boat 
would be as much of a noveltv as were the railroad 
cars to the Worcester of tw^enty years ago, when on 
the 4th of July, 1S35, there w^as a grand celebration 
of their running over the whole road from Boston to 
Worcester. 

Mr. Blake's office (then occupied by Hon. Isaac 
Davis), with the house at the corner of Main and 
Central streets, gave w^ay, not long after my tour, to 
the stone block that now occupies the ground on 
which they stood. But I believe the office is still 
standing in the rear, like one of those monuments of 
the by-past, on which the friendly hand of some Old 



124 CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

Mortality must chisel anew the signs of past owner- 
ship, to save it from the common ashes of the things 
that perish. 

"Mr. Blake died nearly twenty vears ago," said 
my father, among the other remarks which he made 
of him ; and I find by recurring to a brief memoir of 
the man which ^vas given to the public not long after- 
wards, that his death occurred on the 23d of February, 
in the winter of the year 181 7. He was the son of 
merchant Joseph Blake, who moved from Boston to 
our goodly town of Rutland, before the opening of the 
Revolution, where he engaged largely in trade, and 
where Francis, the fifth son, was born, (the record 
says), October 14th, 1774. When Francis was five 
years old, the family quitted the pleasant hills and 
blue sky of Rutland, for the sand beach and blue 
ocean of Hingham. One of the other four sons was 
George Blake, of Boston, who for a long time filled 
with distinguished ability the office of U- S. District 
Attorney for Massachusetts ; and whom I ha\e heard 
my father speak of as one of the clearest and most for- 
cible speakers that ever addressed a popular assembly, 
and unsurpassed as a debater. There was talent in 
the Blake family ; though I should judge that Francis 



CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 1 25 

had more imagination than George, and was gifted 
with a richer and loftier eloquence. 

The college catalogue tells me that Francis Blake 
graduated at the University in 1791 ; and I learn from 
other sources that he was admitted to the bar in 1794, 
and "put up his shingle" in Rutland, the place of 
his nativity, where he remained till shortly after Mr. 
Jefferson came into the presidency, in 1801. His 
brilliant talents attracted the notice of the Democrats 
of Worcester and their admiration had been heig-ht- 
ened by an oration which he delivered on the 4th of 
July, 1796. The two great parties, the Democrats 
and Federalists, were then taking a distinct form in 
the countr}' ; so that on the succession of the Jefferson 
administration to power, the Democrats felt compelled 
to make no inconsiderable efforts to sustain themselves 
against what they denominated " the slanders and the 
libels of the Federalists" upon themselves and their 
principles. The}^ determined to set up a democratic 
press in Worcester, and liberal subscriptions for that 
purpose, my father told me, were made by the senior 
Gov. Lincoln, Gov. Sullivan, Gov. Eustis, "Honey" 
Austin, as Benjamin Austin was called from some 
pungent articles which he wrote under the signature 



126 carl's tour in main street. 

of '■' Honestus." They gave their newspaper the 
name of The National u^g-is ; and Francis Blake 
moved his office from Rutland to Worcester, and be- 
came its editor. My father had the early files of the 
paper, and many years afterwards he might often be 
seen, with his silver-bowed spectacles on, diligently 
perusing them as leisure gave him opportunitv. The 
u'^gis had "a hard row to hoe," so powerful were 
the prejudices of the community against the adminis- 
tration of Jefferson, and so influential were the appeals 
of the body of the clergy and others to put down the 
man who was represented as the tool and ally of the 
French Revolutionists. After conducting the ^^gls 
three or four years, Mr, Blake dissolved his connec- 
tion with it, and devoted himself to his profession. 
The paper passed through various fortunes, good, bad 
and indifterent ; and at the time of which I am writing 
it was printed in the upper part of Green's block, in 
which at the time v^^ere the Central Bank, Harris's 
bookstore, and the offices of some of the principal 
lawyers of the town. 

It was the remark of my father that nothing gave 
him more pleasure than to go into court, and hear 
Frank Blake in the argfuments which he was often 



carl's tour in main street. 127 

called to make in the cause of his numerous clients ; 
he had always such a ready and rich eloquence, was 
so keen in drawing out and managing the testimony 
of witnesses, and had so much power over juries. 
Twice he represented Worcester county in the senate 
— just before the opening of the War of 181 2. At 
the time of his death he was filling the office of clerk 
of the courts, to which he had been appointed but a 
short time before. 

Several of the children, with the grandchildren, of 
this former distinguished citizen of Worcester, are 
now residents here ; and walk the streets which he 
once walked ; gaze upon the magnificient elms whose 
cooling shade he once enjoyed ; survey the present 
landscape, the starry lirmament, and the gorgeous 
sunsets, as he once did, from the hills that then sur- 
rounded the quiet hamlet, and on whose sides a busy 
population have erected tasteful residences that never 
entered into the dreams of the dwellers in the Wor- 
cester of forty years ago. I might have written more 
than I have written, of their distinguished relative ; 
but if in what I have said, I have touched one mem- 
ory or one sympathy with an unkindly hand, I hope 
they will pardon something to the spirit that would 



128 carl's tour in main street. 

remind the generation of to-day of the virtues of the 
generations that have preceded them ; for I would 
impress upon all the poet's truth : 

" Men pass, 
Cleaving to things themselves which pass away, 
Like leaves on waves. Thus all things pass forever, 
Save mind and the mind's meed." 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

M>'. Editor: — On the west side of Main street, 
facing into Central street, stood twenty years ago, as 
now, the residence of Dr. John Green, the third phy- 
sician of that name in Worcester. It is a three-story 
brick house. My father remembered it when it was 
but two stories high, and Main street, in front of it, 
was at so great an elevation as to admit of passing 
from it into what , is now a chamber window. It 
shows how great have been the changes in the grade 
of that street. I am not sure that he told me how 
long that place had been the residence of the Green 
famil}^ He told me that the present occupant is the 
third of the name who have successively filled the 
post of physician to the people of Worcester. It 
struck me at the time as a remarkable fact to the his- 
tory of a family, that it should afford three doctors of 
the same name in succession ; and, as opportunity has 

9 



130 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

occurred, I have from time to time minuted down, in 
the tablet of memory, such facts as I have been able to 
gather. For much of my information I am indebted 
to the Greens themselves, though they cannot tell 
who I am, nor the times when, nor the places where, 
I obtained my information. 

The origin of the Green family in this region has 
about it an air of romance. Its founder, who w^as 
born in the first years of the iSth century came from 
Maiden in Middlesex. It is said that the surgeon of a 
British ship was in the habit of visiting at his father's 
house in Maiden ; and that in the estimation of the 
boy Thomas, the British surgeon was a model man ; 
and that the gift of a medical book, in those days 
when books were rarities, decided the future fate of 
the boy Thomas. He determined to be a doctor him- 
self. At what time he left his father's house in Mai- 
den, I know not ; but as the boy Thomas was about 
ten years old when little Adonijah Rice was born — 
the first birth in Worcester — I presume his exodus 
from Maiden must have been shortly after the settle- 
ment of Jonas Rice in Worcester ; a few years, more 
or less, making no essential difference when speaking 
of the minor events of the past. 



CARI. S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. I3I 

I have no authority for this statement ; but the 
supposition is my own, that the young inan Thomas 
Green went out from his. father's house, carrying with 
him his medical library of one volume, that he might 
associate w^ith the Indians enough to obtain from them 
their secret of curing diseases ; as in the early days 
of the country, medical men were glad to avail them- 
selves of everv means within their reach for enlars'ino: 
their ability to heal the sick. The young Dr. Thomas 
Green strolled away a two days' journey at least from 
the house of his childhood, till he came to a shelving 
rock that formed a sort of cave near a spring of pure 
water that bubbled out of " Strawberry Bank" — now 
Leicester Hill — where, like the modern philosopher 
of Walden Pond, he took up his abode ; nature his 
teacher, the green earth his bed, the blue sky his cov" 
ering, and the wild men of the forest his only neigh- 
bors. There was something more than romance in 
that. There was stern reality. The medical philos- 
opher became devout under the teachings of nature ; 
and as society gathered itself around him, the settlers 
looked to the man Thomas for medicine for the mind 
as well as medicine for the body. He became a 
preacher as well as a doctor. He gathered a church 



132 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

— a Baptist church — and preached on Sundays and 
practised physic week days. 

Time went on ; and wdien the preacher-doctor had 
reached nearly the middle point allotted as the life of 
man, there was born to him a son, whom he named 
John ; probably because it was the name borne by 
that disciple whom it is said "Jesus loved." The 
boy John w^as early initiated into the mysteries of the 
healing art, and as soon as he had reached his ma- 
jority, he quitted the paternal roof at "Strawberry 
Bank;" and following down the course of "Kettle 
Brook," he took up his abode in Worcester, nearly 
four score years anterior to the time when my father 
and I passed by the house of his worthy descendant. 

This John the First, my father told me, married a 
daughter of the celebrated tory, Timothy Ruggles. 
You w^ill remember the anecdote which my father told 
of him ; how that he was sitting as chief justice of the 
court of magistrates, for whom he entertained no very 
profound respect ; and that one day, when one of the 
chairs happened to be vacant, a large dog walked up 
and seated himself in the vacant chair, and how the 
brigadier judge, in a loud and peremptory voice, or- 
dered the dog to get down out of the chair, and not 



carl's tour in main street. 133 

presume to take that seat until he had been qualified 
by taking the oath of office. The brigadier judge was 
a man of mark ; and manifestly the blood of the Rug- 
gleses has not yet run out. His daughter, the wife of 
John the First, was one of them in more senses than 
one. One of her sons yet lives among us ; and 
thouo;h I know but little of him beyond what I have 
heard from others, I doubt not that there is full as 
much of the Ruggles as of the Green in his composi- 
tion. In wit and ready reply he is a fit representative 
of the brigadier judge. Hale and hearty he lives on 
the paternal estate upon the summit of a hill, that is 
reached by a narrow lane, at some distance to the 
northeast of Lincoln Square ; and when death calls 
for him, I doubt not he will be found, like Cooper's 
" Leather-Stocking," standing up six feet high, wait- 
ing for the summons, without a tear and without a 
fear. 

My father was familiar with the whole history of 
the Greens. He used to speak often of John the First 
and his sons, and ^vas intimate, I should think, with 
John the Second, whose sons, John the Third and 
his brothers, still live among us, a highly respected, 
though somewhat peculiar race. If I mistake not, 



134 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

the blood of Ruggles is In them all. What they will, 
they will ; and -what they won't, they won't. But it 
is delicate ground on which I am treading, and I re- 
fuse to advance. 

There was a Green, the son of the first John, 
of whom my father seemed to cherish recollections 
stronger than those of ordinary friendship. It was 
Timothy — named probably after his grandfather, or 
the brigadier judge. He was a lawyer, and opened 
an office at an early day in the city of New York. 
Business called him south just after the opening of the 
War of 1812. While at Charleston he was introduced 
to the family of Mr. Allston, the governor of South 
Carolina, whose wife was a daughter of the notable 
Aaron Burr. And in passing, I may remark that my 
father told me that he once saw Burr. It was not long 
before the time of which I am writing, that he was 
walking up Broadv^ay, in company with a distin- 
guished counsellor of the city of New York, when 
they met an old man, tottering around a corner, who 
seemed to have grown into the habit of shunning every- 
body, and being shunned by everybody. "That," 
said the counsellor to my father, "is the celebrated 
Aaron Burr ; and he lives comparatively alone at such 



carl's tour in main street. 135 

a house in that street." It was Timothy Green's in- 
troduction to the family of Gov. Allston that cost him 
his Hfe. Mrs. Allston was desirous of visiting her 
father at New York ; and as the land-route was too 
hard for her to travel, Timothv Green was induced to 
change his determination to return home by stages, 
and accompany Mrs. Allston by water. They took 
passage on board of a privateer for New York ; and 
that was the last ever heard of them or the vessel. If 
they had been captured, it is probable that their fate 
would have become a matter of history. As they 
were never heard of more, it is inore than probable 
that the ship was wrecked ; and that all on board 
went down to sleep amidst the pearl and coral of the 
ocean, no more to be heard from till the sea shall give 
up the mighty multitude that, age after age, have sunk 
into its bosom, and over whom the wild waves are 
chanting a never-ceasing requiem. "Lost at sea" is 
the inscription on some branch of almost every family 
tree ; and the Green family is not exempt from what 
seems the common calamity of the race. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Mr. Edito?' : — " Good day to you, Samuel !" said 
my father, as we came to the door of Burchstead's 
shoe-shop, in the basement of the four story brick 
house, next south of Dr. Green's. Thev shook hands 
and cracked jokes for a few minutes. " How is 'fed- 
eral rib and cotton' to-day.^" inquired my father. I 
do not remember the answer that was given ; but I 
learned afterwards, that the smiling, witty, sarcastic 
individual, dressed in a large brown coat, whom my 
father addressed was old Mr. Samuel Brazer ; and that 
the "federal rib and cotton" was a by-word between 
them, which had its origin more than forty years 
before ; at the time when the " Green Store" was a 
factory, and when Mr. Brazer advertised and sold the 
corduroys and jeans manufactured there, under the 
expressive name of "federal rib and cotton." 

In early life, Samuel Brazer opened a store in 
Worcester : but at what particular place, I have for- 
gotten, if I ever knew. All I now remember, is that 



carl's tour in main street. 137 

my father told me that Mr. Brazer lost his dwelling- 
house, his store, and most of his goods, in a disas- 
trous fire which occurred.nearly twenty years before, 
one cold, snowy, stormy day in February, (.S13), 
.yhen the house and bake-house of the late Ehsha 
Flag-, Esq., were also burnt to the ground. Mr. 
Brazer's buildings had been replaced by the brick 
house, already mentioned, and the two story wooden 
building which was crushed by the falling walls of 
Flag- Hall, which was destroyed by fire in the wnrter 
of 1854. Mr. Flagg had replaced his with a double 
three story brick house, and by one or more wooden 
buildings south of it, which were moyed away about 
the time of mv tour, to make room for the three story 
brick building, in which for many years the au-n^'g" 
amond Bank was located. The house was taken 
down to give place to Flagg Hall, and the bank 
building shared the same fortune to give room for the 
ele-ant and substantial four story block of s,x stores 
tha° now covers the whole ground on which the 
flames committed so much havoc with Mr. Flagg's 
property iniSiS, and again in 1S54. 

If I remember aright, it was the remark of my 
father, that the late Wm. Lincoln, Esq., had an office 



138 carl's tour in main street. 

in the chambers of the wooden building which occu- 
pied the ground where the south end of Flagg's Block 
now stands ; and that there he practised law, edited 
the yEgis^ and wrote those famous "pig reports" for 
the agricultural fairs, that were so extensively pub- 
lished and commended for their wit and humor. 

Mr. Brazer, at the time of which I am writing, 
had retired from business ; and although fiir advanced 
in life, he was "ripe for fun," at all times, and at the 
expense of himself or his friends. It was remarked 
by my father, that Mr. Brazer loved a "cut" upon 
his minister, the Rev. Dr. Bancroft, as much as upon 
any one of his acquaintance ; and I remember of his 
telling of a passage between them, in which Mr. 
Brazer unbridled his sarcasm at the doctor's expense. 
The doctor was telling a company how he was preach- 
ing once by candlelight, when his notes caught fire 
and it was with difficulty that he saved his sermon. 
"Why didn't you let it burn.^" inquired Brazer; 
"your audience would have got more light from it 
in that w\ay than in an}^ other !" 

Mr. Brazer had two sons ; both of whom, I have 
heard my father remark, were " chips of the old 
block." Their names were Samuel and John. He 



carl's tour in main street. 139 

tried to make a merchant of Samuel, by putting him 
in a store in Boston ; but as he could not succeed in 
inspiring him with any love for that employment, he 
took him home, to fit him for a profession, with the 
hope, he was accustomed to say, that "he might get 
his living by his wits, if he couldn't by good hits." 
He must have been a young man of rare abilities ; 
but with a certain obliquity of mind that prevented 
him from rightly appreciating the purpose of life and 
its duties. He learned his lessons too easily to be 
a close, persevering student ; and his love of fun fre- 
quently led him into little "scrapes," which, though 
free from malice, were nevertheless hindrances to 
success. He was fitted for college ; but never went 
there. He studied law ; but never loved his profes- 
sion. Newspaper columns for him had many attrac- 
tions ; and in the early columns of the ^-^gis^ were 
many sharp articles, both of prose and poetry, which 
my father used to read over, with a relish, accompa- 
nying them with the remark, " That's one of Sam's !" 
His feelings were too genial for success in the cold 
ploddings of professional life. He loved the excite- 
ment of momentary success ; and therefore after a tem- 
porary occupancy of a law office in some small town 



140 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

ill our county of Franklin, with little or no business, 
he came back to Worcester, and assumed the duties 
of editor of the yEs^is. I think it was not Ions' 
afterward, that he quitted Worcester, wxnt to Balti- 
more, and became the editor of the Patriot^ published 
in that city. " Sam was a downright clever fellow," 
said my father; "I missed him much wdien he left 
us ; and heard of his death with much sorrow." 

The other son of Samuel Brazer, Rev. John Bra- 
zer, D. D., a clergyman in Salem until his death 
w^ithin a few years, was probably known to most of 
your readers by reputation, if not personally. He 
had the family characteristics ; but they were in sub- 
jection to high and pure motives. He graduated at 
Harvard College with high honor as a scholar ; im- 
mediately became one of its tutors, and subsequently a 
professor ; and in a few years dissolved his connection 
with the college, and was ordained as a preacher over 
a leading Unitarian society in Salem. It was alvv^ays 
a pleasure to me to hear him preach, as occasionally I 
did ; for from the pulpit then, 

" A voice arose, 
Solemn and sweet as when low winds attune, 
The midnight pines." 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 14I 

The east side of Main street, opposite Brazer's and 
Flagg's buildings, has now nothing upon it that was 
there twenty years ago. A dwelling house and a law 
office were shoved away, a few years since, to make 
room for the "Waldo Block;" and last year the old 
Central Hotel was cut into quarters, and on the 
ground has since arisen an elegant four story hotel,* 
in modern style, which from present indications, the 
public will soon be invited to occupy. I know not 
how long it had been a public house ; but if my 
memory serves me, my father told me that a part of 
it was once the house of Dea. Daniel Hey wood ; and 
shortly after the incorporation of Worcester county 
one of the chambers was used for the county jail. 
Several additions have been made from time to time ; 
and within my own recollection an elegant portico — 
one of the best specimens of architectural taste in 
town — was erected over the entrance. How it came 
to be there, I know not ; but I always loved the sight 
of it, and regretted the loss of it. The house was 
once kept by JMr. Hathaway ; but that was before my 
day, and I should not have known it, had I not heard 
iny father make the remark that "-Hathaway w^as a 
prince among landlords." 

*The Bay State House. 



142 CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

As we passed it on our way to the Common, we 
saw the people very busy in their preparations for the 
"Cattle Show Ball," that was to "come oft^"- there 
that evening ; for at that time the hall of the Central 
Hotel was the only public hall in Worcester, except 
the old town hall ; and it was used on all occasions. 
There was no other ball room in town, no other 
suitable place where the " light fantastic toe" could 
agitate itself to its owner's satisfaction. We came to 
a knot of young gentleman who were in hot disputa- 
tion over the grave and solemn matter of an invitation 
which one of the managers had had the temerity to 
extend to an individual, who it was said, was " no- 
thing but a mechanic," and therefore not entitled to 
social position among those who then claimed the 
exclusive right to control an agricultural ball. The 
illiberal spirit, then manifested, found it difficult to 
sustain its petty exclusiveness. It has melted down 
to nothing, or so near to nothing as to be insignificant 
in its demonstrations. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Mr^ Editoi' : — "Columbian Avenue," said my 
father, "is the magnificent name which they have 
given to this narrow road." It is now Exchange 
street.* It had been opened but a short time, I believe, 
from Main to Summer streets, with a rickety wooden 
bridge where there is now one of stone, across what 
Avas then the Blackstone Canal. It is now lined with 
buildings on both sides, and a portion of the street 
was the centre of the very destructive fire of June, 
1854. At the time of which I am writing, stood a 
two story brick building, then occupied as a dry 
goods store. The owner and his lady stood in the 
door. "They say he keeps his wife to hang dry 
goods on," was the remark of my father; "but I 
think it is a slander, for she is a smart as well as pretty 
woman." At the distance of a few feet south, on 
Main street, stood the Bank Building. It was an L 

""At one time called Market Street. 



144 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

block of three stories, and was built about the begin- 
ning of the present century by the Worcester Bank ; 
one part of it for banking purposes, and the other 
for the house of its president, the late Mr. Waldo, 
who lived there, my father remarked, until an indi- 
vidual, with none of the best of motives, obstructed 
the light and air of the windows by erecting the store, 
of which I have just sj^oken. Mr. Waldo had then 
built him a new house, on the lot next south ; and 
the bank building, with the exception of the banking- 
rooms, was then the fashionable boarding-house of 
the town. It shortlv afterwards became the " Central 
Exchange ;" and in it were the post-office, several 
law offices, and printing offices. The store became 
the "York House," and w^as occupied as a victualling 
house ; to which a high brick building had been 
added as a wool store. It was a cold Sunday night, 
a few years afterwards, in which I was aroused by 
an alarm of fire ; and running with speed to the 
scene, I was pained to find the "York House" envel- 
oped in fire, and the flames pouring from its roof into 
all the north windows of the Central Exchange. But 
I have no occasion, Mr. Editor, to recall the scene to 
your mind, inasmuch as your Palladium went down 



CARLS TOl'lt IX MAIN' S'l'lJEKT. I45 

in the deluge of fire. But vou know not the regrets 
I experienced at mv apprehension that \ might suffer 
tlie loss of niv weekly visitor, which had e\ en then 
become one of my necessities ; nor tlie gratificati<ni 
which I experienced, when two davs after, the paper 
appeared as usual, furnishing the history of its o\yn 
death and resurrection. 

^ly fatlier showed me an ancient pear tree that 
stood in the \icinity of the Exchani^e : and told me 
that it was more than a hundred years old ; that it was. 
planted by Dea. Daniel I ley wood, one of the early 
settlers, who owned land upon that portion of the east 
side of Main street ; and on which, near the Ex- 
change, there was erected the second garrison in 
Worcester — the first one havino- been established at a 
point which he sho\yed me on the rising ground west 
of the head of Park street. Subsequently Dea. Iley- 
wood built him a house, near the spot, which after- 
w^ards became a part of the late Central Hotel. 

This Dea. Heywood was evidently a man to make 
a mark in whatever he attempted. He was a man of 
a positive, and not of a negative, character. He 
belonged to the party that made the first permanent 
settlement in Worcester. He was a good Christian, 

lO 



146 carl's tour IX MAIN STREET- 

and a good soldier, who could use both " spiritual 
and carnal weapons" with equal adroitness, I infer 
from such facts in relation to him as have come down 
to the present time. He took an active part in estab- 
lishino" the first church in town, and was honored 
^vith the post of its first deacon ; and in those days the 
office of a deacon was one of high honor, and as much 
coveted as is that of postmaster or tidewaiter at this 
dav. He was probably conscientious in the move- 
ment, and justified himself by an argument upon the 
necessitv of the case, but I can but regret that he 
should have encouraged, as I have reason to believe 
he did — even if he did not take a part in it — the 
destruction of the meeting-house of the " Scotch Cov- 
enanters," while they were building it in the high 
•srrounds of Lincoln street. But the good deacon 
probably believed that it was his duty to fight as well 
as to pray : for it appears that he was ever ready to 
observe the "wholesome law" of the old colonial 
legislature, which required that every man should go 
to church and carry his gun and half a dozen ball 
cartridges ; but forbid them, under a penalty of five 
sliilHngs for each ofience, to fire ofi' a gun on Sunday, 
"at anv game whatsoever, except a?i Indiaji or a 



carl's jour in main SIRKKT. I47 

^v()lt^" And Dea. Heywood, I said, was a <j;<,od 
soldier, as well as a good Christian : for I find that 
when lie \^•as some thirty years older than he was 
when he was chosen deacon, he took command of a 
company — a full one of soldiers enlisted in Worces- 
ter, who made a part of Gen. Dwight's command in 
an expedition against the Indians. History tells me 
that it was on the 8th day of August, 1748, — one 
hundred and seven years ago, — that fifty-three vol- 
unteer soldiers, citizens of Worcester, paraded in 
Main street, opposite the Central Exchange : and that 
Major Heywood, acting as captain, came from his 
house, and took command of them : and that after 
reviewing them, in the presence of a large portion of 
the inhabitants of the town, and finding them ''armed 
and equipped as the law directs," he marched them 
ofi'to join the main body of Dwight's troops, in their 
determination to slay the Indians, or drive them oH' to 
Canada. The French were in possession of Canada, 
and they instigated the Indians to annoy the American 
settlements. But as good luck would have it deacon- 
major and his men came back safe, after an absence 
of about three weeks among the granite hills, not 
having had a chance to spend any of their ammuni- 



I4S CARI.'S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

tion on any such " game" as Indians. In tills thev 
were fortunate. The Indians kept out of their reach. 
They were less powerful at that day than they were 
when the Nipmuck tribe reigned supreme in all this 
region, making their headquarters on Pakachoag Hill, 
where now stands the College of the Holy Cross ; and 
hunting upon these hills, and fishing in Qiiinsiga- 
mond and other ponds and streams. 

Heywood and his associates must have been men 
of iron nerves and resolute wills. Two companies ot 
settlers had preceded them, and failed in their purpose 
of effecting a settlement. Thev were constantlv ex- 
posed, and often seriously annoyed by the Indians 
who skulked about in the vicinity. He came here 
from Concord in Aliddlesex ; and besides being the 
the first in the long line of deacons in Worcester, he 
was for a good manv years chairman of the board of 
selectmen ; though I think he was not a member (^f 
the first board that was chosen after the incorporation 
of the town in 1722. He was also treasurer and town 
clerk, and took a leading part in town business. 

There was another Heywood, who, subsequently, 
was one of the most distinguished men of Worcester. 
I am not certain of the fact, Init it is my impression 



carl's TOril IX MAIX STKEK'l-. I49 

that he was a nephew of the deacon : and that his 
fatlier came from Concord with him, and afterwards 
crossed Qiiinsigamond, and located himself on the 
east side in Shrewsbury. This was Judge Heywood, 
whose descendants are among us to-day. Benjamm 
was his name. lie served an apprenticeship as a 
carpenter : but subsequently went to college ; and 
when the War of the Revolution broke out, he joined 
the army as a lieutenant ; was soon made a captain 
and subsequently a paymaster. He served through 
the war, and enjoyed in an eminent degree, the con- 
fidence and esteem of officers and soldiers. For a 
period of some ten years near the commencement of 
the present century he was a judge of the court of 
common pleas : and during his life he filled other 
important positions assigned liim by the government 
or the people. 

It is said that the biggest individuals that walk 
upon the face of the earth, are boys from sixteen to 
twenty vears of age ; that they know a vast deal more 
than they ever know at any later period of their lives ; 
and I. have a suspicion that they never fully outgrow 
the feeling : for I find that some of the present genera- 
tion seem to be afflicted with the idea that AV^orcester 



150 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

was not much of a place before they came upon Its 
stage of action ; and that there would be great uncer- 
tainty as to its fate if they should chance to be called 
away. But admitting all the consequence which they 
attach to themselves, I can not avoid the- impression 
that Worcester has had some men of influence and 
character in every period of its existence as a munic- 
ipal body. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Mr. Editor:— "^\-\^ building which was so long 
occupied by the Worcester Bank— afterwards the old 
Central Exchange— was erected, my fother remarked, 
by the late Col. Peter Kendall ; and the bricks, which 
were large and handsome, were carted into town from 
Sterling. An accident, he also remarked, happened 
there to our townsman, William Harrington, which 
resulted in the loss of one of his limbs. That must have 
been as much as fifty years ago. The bank has been 
in operation fifty-one years, and has had 1nit three 
presidents all the while. At the time of its incorpo- 
ration there were but few banks in the State. Its 
capital was a large one tbr a country bank at that 
time— $200,000. Its hrst president was Daniel Waldo. 
senior; its second, Daniel Waldo, the younger, who 
filled the office for more than forty years; and its 



152 CARLS TOUR IX MAIN STREET. 

third, the present incumbent, Hon. Stephen Salisbury. 
Either of its presidents could have owned the whole 
stock well enough, if they had chosen to do so. Of 
Daniel Waldo, the elder, you remember, I have 
already related an anecdote told mc I)}- mv father, how 
he was sent for bv the Shavs men, in the time of the 
rebellion, and marched through the street, bv a file of 
soldiers, to tlie " Hancock Arms," to answer to the 
grave charge of poisoning the sugar wliich the soldiers 
mixed with their rum ; and how he was discharged 
upon tlic disco^"ery that the poison which so seriously 
alarmed those who had taken it, proved to ])e snic^^ 
whicli Air. Waldo's clerk had accidentalh' dropped 
into the sugar ; and how they were reconciled by the 
gift of a keg of West India nun. Mv father knew the 
elder Waldo. He said that he moved from Boston to 
Worcester while the War of the Revolution was in 
progress; and that so far as he remembered, — for he 
was but a lad then, — Mr. Waldo's sympathies were 
with the tory side. He was spoken of also, by the 
people of that day, as " aristocratic " in his tastes and 
habits ; and there were many caustic remarks made 
upon his extravagance in owning a one-horse chaise. 
I suppose from that circiunstance that there was no 



carl's toupv in main strke'I'. 153 

othcM- one in town at that time. It was then the 
universal custom for a gentleman antl lady, when 
<roincr to church or elsewhere, to ride horseback — the 
lady upon a pillion behind the gentleman's saddle. 
The young folks walked : and they were prudent then, 
for I have heard my father say, that many was the 
time that he had seen the young ladies who lived out 
of the village, put on shoes and stockings when they 
catne in sight of the meeting-house, and take them oil 
aoain when going home, walking bare-foot to save 
i^hoe-leather. Young ladies \vere more robust and 
liardy then ; still I think the young ladies of to-day 
may save their constitutions without a literal imitation 
of a custom which was considered praiseworthy m 
their grandmothers. 

]Man\ of our young readers, I doubt not, will be 
interested in the statement that banking business was 
;i diflerent matter with the Worcester Bank, in its 
early years, from what it is now. The notes discounted 
were signed, jointl}- and severally, by two or more 
individuals, and made payable in sixty days. At the 
end of that period, an instalment on the note was paid 
to the bank, of ten or twenty per cent, as previously 
agreed upon, with the interest on the amount remaining 



154 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

unpaid, for another period of sixty days : and this 
process was repeated every sixty days until the whole 
loan was repaid. But the note could he put in suit at 
any time after the expiration of the first sixty days. 

So high was the character of the '' Worcester 
Bank," that its bills always circulated (I have been 
told), as readily in the West and vSouth as the l^ills of 
anv other New Engfland l:)ank. I have heard of an 
item of its history which produced great excitement in 
its day. It must have l)een nearly or quite thirty years- 
ago, at the time what used to be called the " Sutiblk 
Bank System" went into operation. It had previously 
been the custom for the banks in Boston to send out 
messengers to the coimtr\- l^anks, with the bills which 
they had taken on those banks, and get the specie for 
them, which thev carted oiY to Boston. The Suffolk 
Bank introduced the plan of requiring the country- 
banks to make a deposit in Boston for the redemption 
of their notes there. The Worcester Bank did not 
accede to the arrangement : and the Suffolk picked up 
all its notes it could find, and then made a "run" on 
the Worcester for their redemption. Jt did not succeed 
in forchig' the Worcester into its plan ; which was. 
afterwards voluntarily adopted. 



CAKL S TOUK IN MAIN .STREET. 



.•)D 



Vou will allow me in this connection to relate an 
anecdote I have heard of a cashier of a country bank. 
A run was made upon him for a greater amount than 
he had specie in his vault. It was afternoon ; and he 
proceeded very deliberately in opening and counting 
out package after package, until the clock struck a 
certain hour. Then stopping he said : '' We never 
do business after this time of day, and we will stop 
where we are." The messenger demurred, and 
insisted upon going through with the job, so that he 
could return to Boston. But the cashier was immov- 
able. Not another dollar would he count that day to 
please anybody. The messenger insisted upon their 
remaining in the bank. "Very well (said the cashier), 
if you choose to remain you can ; I am going out, and 
shall lock vou in." Not liking the prospect of a 
night's imprisonment, the messenger most unwillingly 
postponed his departure till the next day. In the 
meantime the cashier rode post-haste to the nearest 
bank he could find ; borrowed specie enough to 
accommodate the Boston sfentleman with the sum he 
was after ; and opened his bank in the morning at the 
usual hour, and with a smiling face took up the 
business where they left it the dav before. vSt) much 



156 CARI.'S lOUR IN MAIN S rHP:ET. 

for regular liours of business and the benefits of a strict 
adlierence to them. Plad he kept his bank open 
beyond the customary hoiu", the day he was called 
upon, it would have failed as sure as fate before 
sunset. JMem. Cashiers should take time to coimt 
their money very carefully, when thev are short of 
specie funds. 

At the time of which I write. Daniel Waldo, the 
younger — the second piesident of the Worcester 
Bank — resided with three sisters in the three-story 
brick house next south of the bank building. Neither 
of them were e\'er married. They had one of the 
largest estates ever held in the interior of the State ; 
and I doubt not that less charitable dispositions than 
they possessed would have made their accumula- 
tions of wealth vastly greater than they were. The 
elder Gov. Lincoln married another sister. The late 
Mr. Waldo was scrupulously exact in all his transac- 
tions. He was the financier of the family. His 
liberality was evinced on many occasions, though not 
in any broad sweep. And by his will the mass of his 
property was bestowed upon missionary and other 
societies. It w\is with regret that I heard that he 
gave nothing comparatively to the town where his life 



CARl/S TOUK IX -MA IX STHKK'J'. J^/ 

was passed, and in wliich his money was made ; tor 
liad he done so his name would have been cherished 
through ages as a public benefactor. As it is, I tear 
it will nowhere be found, a few years hence, except 
upon some inconsiderable building or street. Even 
his mansion house has already fallen a victim to the 
spirit of progress, and been shoved down to a new 
street across the foot of his garden : and on Its site 
the Mechanics' Hall is now rising, to bury beneath 
its importance every association connected with the 
former occupancy of the land. 

Mr. Waldo was modest and unobtrusixe in his 
deportment. lie belonged to the old federal party in 
politics, and was a member of the notable convention 
which met at Hartford during the War of 1812. He 
w^as a good man, and a useful and much-respected 
citizen : and might, if he had chosen to do so, have 
shared largelv in those substantial honors, which are 
too often won in the arena of politics at the sacrifice 
of the solid and enduring happiness of private life. 
It is true that his property was his own, to dispose of 
as suited his pleasure ; but I could have wished that 
with a portion of it some monument might have been 
reared that would have sent his name, " sparkling 



158 carl's tour IX MAIN STREET, 

down to the tide of time," as a great public benefactor 
to the community in which he Hved, connected with 
some department of hterature, science, or art, of 
industry, or of philanthropy in some of the various 
forms it assumes for the benefit of mankind. 

Of tlie cashiers of the Worcester Bank, Levi 
Thaxter, Esq., was the first. How long he served in 
that capacity, I know not ; but I believe that its late 
cashier, our respected citizen Samuel Jennison, Esq., 
filled the office for a period of at least thirty years. For 
at least half of that time he was also the treasurer of 
the Worcester County Institution for Savings, and 
transacted all the business of that institution in con- 
nection with the bank, w^ith the aid of occasional 
clerk-hire. The Savings Bank, I find, went into 
operation in 1S28. At the end of the first year its 
deposits amounted to only about $6000. At the end 
of eight vears, they had risen to about $376,000. 
From that time the increase was rapid ; and they now 
amount to not less than $1,800,000: and in the mean 
time the Mechanics Savings Bank has come into 
being, and has now an amount of deposits considerably 
larger than the old institution had in 1S36. 



CAULS TOUR IN MAIN STRKKl'. 1 59 

For a period of twenty-four years, the Worcester 
Bank was the only banking institution in town. New 
men and new interests ]ia\'e come forward to l)e 
<iccommodated, until there are now six banks, instead 
of one, with an aggregate capital of nearly a million 
:i\nd a half. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Mr. Editor: — Next south of the Waldo house, 
stood a three story frame house, with a one story L 
facing Main street, which was moved awav a few 
years ago, to give place to the spacious and elegant 
four story Union Block. I noticed the small sign of 
*•' Post Office" over the door. My father stepped into 
a small entry — perhaps six feet square, with a few' 
letter boxes in front, and a delivery v^^indow at one 
side. "How do you do, deacon.''" said he; "have 
you anything in the office for me to-day V In a 
moment I heard the quick and rather sharp reply, 
from an elderly man inside : " Nothing at present.'''' 

The individual thus addressed was Deacon James 
Wilson, the postmaster. He was of middling size, 
and dressed somewhat in the style of a gentleman of 
the old school ; with a long, large coat, long, slashed 



CAKI.'S roUK IN MAIN SfHKKT. lOI 

vest; breeches, long stockings, shoes, knee buckles, 
and shoe buckles. '' He is not always the most civil 
of men," was the remark of my father; ''and I sup- 
pose his long and constant confinement makes him a 
little petulant at times." I remember that he said also 
that the deacon did all the business of the post-office 
himself: his daughter taking his place in his absence. 
Such was the Worcester post-office but little more 
than twenty years ago. In a former chapter of this 
history, you will remember that I said that the first 
postmaster here was the celebrated Isaiah Thomas. 
I think he had his appointment from Benjamin Frank- 
lin. Mr. Thomas moved the Spy printing office 
from Boston to Worcester in the spring of 1775. If I 
remember rightly, my father said it was opened in a 
small building on Lincoln Street, near the " Hancock 
Arms." In the following autumn, Mr. Thomas was 
appointed postmaster, and had the post-office for a 
time at the same place ; but subsequently moved it to 
'^ Court Hill." I am not able to state it as a positive 
fact, but I have the impression that Mr. Thomas re- 
tained the post-office until the accession of Mr. Jetier- 
son to the presidency in 1801 ; when, in the general 
sweep that followed, he was either removed, or not 



II 



i62 carl's tour in main street. 

reappointed, and the office was given to Deacon Wil- 
son. He held it from 1801 to near the close of 1833 
— a period of 32 years — when he was removed, and 
Jubal Harrington, Esq., was appointed by Amos 
Kendall, Gen. Jackson's efficient postmaster-general. 
I remember that there was a good deal of violent de- 
nunciation of Gen. Jackson about town because of the 
deacon's removal. Even the good deacon himself did 
not manifest a spirit of resignation ; but shut up his 
door, and refused to let the office remain on his prem- 
ises for a single day. Mr. Harrington took a room in 
the Exchange Coffee House, where the office was kept 
until it was removed to the old Central Exchange. 
In the winter of 1839 ^^^^ office became vacant, and 
M. L. Fisher, Esq., received from Mr. Van Buren 
the appointment of postmaster. Four years after- 
wards, as I have before stated, the Exchange was des- 
troyed by lire. The contents of the post-office, I am 
told, were all saved ; and the next morning the letters 
and mails were delivered from the law office of Hon. 
Isaac Davis. In a day or two it was removed to a 
low building which had been occupied as a "stage 
office," at the corner of Main and Mechanic streets ; 
and was continued there until the commencement of 



caul's tour in main street. 163 

the following winter, when the new Central Exchange 
was completed. 

My father was accustomed to speak of Deacon 
Wilson as "a precise body," who, I should think was 
rather set in his own ways, and somewhat rigid in his 
notions. He was an Englishman, who came to this 
country from the north of England near the close of 
the last century ; and must have been appointed post- 
master very shortly after taking his naturalization 
papers as an American citizen. In his religious yiews 
and associations he was a Baptist ; and my father was 
accustomed to make the remark that " Dea. Wilson 
was the father of all the Baptists in Worcester." I do 
not think that his remark implied anything more than 
that he was one of the first of that denomination in 
town, and was largely instrumental in building it up. 
Indeed I haye since been informed that at the time 
Deacon Wilson came here to liye there was but one 
Baptist in town — the first Dr. John Green, who was 
the son of the preacher doctor, Thomas Green, of 
w*hom I haye before written as the first preacher and 
doctor in the town of Leicester. 

Deacon Wilson, as my father remarked, held meet- 
ings in his own house for a good many years, until 



164 carl's tour in main street. 

the breaking out of the War of 181 2, when the pastor 
of the Old South Church, Rev. Dr. Austin, gave 
*' mortal otience" to the democrats by a sermon which 
he preached upon the war, and in which he handled 
Mr. Madison and the war party without clerical mit- 
tens. Such members of his church as were demo- 
crats then left his meeting in large numbers, and 
united with Deacon Wilson in organizing the First 
Baptist Church. They took the hall in > the old 
Centre School House for meetings on Sabbath, and 
proceeded in the erection of a small meeting house 
east of the Common, where the First Baptist meeting- 
house now stands. As the society increased in num- 
bers, it was found necessary to enlarge the house by 
adding wings to each side. But I find by recurring to 
the annals of the day, that it was on a mild night about 
the .20th of May in the year 1836, that some "peace- 
maker" effected a "compromise" of a controversy 
that had sprung up in the parish about the meeting 
house, by applying to it the torch of the incendiary, 
and in a short time the whole w^as a mass of ruins. 
The way was thus cleared for the erection of a new 
house on the same spot, whose steeple I have often 
heard commended by strangers as one of the best 
specimens of architecture in Worcester. 



cahl's Toi i; IX MAIN sTKKpyr. 165 

Deacon Wilson was chosen the first deacon of the 
Baptist Church at the time of its ori^anization, and 
held the place until liis removal from the post-office, 
when, if mv memory serves me, he left Worcester, 
and took up his residence in one of the western states. 
I never hear the remark, " Nothing at present," as I 
sometimes do, but it brings up before me the form 
and figure of the ancient postmaster, as his voice first 
struck my ear on that pleasant autumnal day when in 
company with my father I made my tour through 
Main street. Could he return and visit anew the 
place where he so long resided, wonderful would he 
find the changes that have occurred in the compara- 
tively brief period of twenty years. His house with 
its little post-office attached has gone from its founda- 
tions, and "nothing at present" indicates where it 
once stood. The church which he labored so hard to 
establish, and over whose infancy he watched with 
parental solicitude, has " swarmed," as they say of 
bees, once and again ; the second church having been 
formed many years ago, and been long in strong oc- 
cupancy of a house of worship on Pleasant street ; and 
the third having been some time organized, and now 
building an elegant and substantial meeting house of 
brick, at a point in Alain street which twenty years 



i66 carl's tour in main street. 

ago was "quite out of town." Instead of a post-office 
with a handful of letters each day, which one person 
could manage, he would find letters coming in by the 
bushel, and a half a dozen clerks and penny posts to 
deliver them. He would be convinced that in this 
age of steam, and electricity, and wind, and bustle, 
things go on as with a destiny which man is feeble to 
control or direct. If he did not believe in "spirit- 
ualism," or " animal magnetism," I think he would 
adopt the conclusion that there is in these days a good 
deal of material magiietisni^ which operates with 
great force in bringing wood, and stone, and bricks, 
and iron, together in large masses, and moulding and 
shaping them into elegant and costly edifices, that are 
either the temples where industry worships mammon, 
or the homes of a happy and refined civilization. 

Vours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Mr. Editor: — Next south of Deacon Wilson's little 
post-office, stood, twenty years ago, the residence of 
the late Hon. Samuel M. Burnside : next to that a one 
storj wooden building, occupied by ISIr. Burnside, and 
the late Hon. Alfred Dwight Foster, as their law- 
office ; and next south, the house of Mr. Foster. There 
was a fence in front, and yards with shrubbery. AH 
these buildings were given up, not long afterwards, to 
the purposes of trade, except Mr. Foster's house, to 
which another story was added, and other extensive 
additions made ; and it has since rendered the public 
good service as the "American House."* 

An accident, which it is of no importance to vour 
readers to know, made me acquainted early with Mr, 
Burnside ; and that acquaintance, which was always 



*This stood on the north corner of Foster street. 



1 68 carl's tour in main street. 

valuable to me, continued without interruption to his 
death, which I sincerely lamented. He was a man of 
a strongly marked character, and many peculiarities, 
which many people misinterpreted, because they did 
not read him aright. He was an honest man in his 
sentiments and in his dealings. I was standing once 
in the post-office entry with mv father, who was con- 
versing with the postmaster. Mr. Burnside came in, 
and took his letters from the office, and walked away. 
In a few minutes, he came back walking rapidly, and 
said to the postmaster : — " This is a double letter, and 
I have paid only single postage upon it ; " at the same 
time handing to the postmaster another postage. How 
few are the iTien who would have done that ! Yet the 
postmaster told my father that Mr. Burnside had done 
it hundreds of times — always coming back with the 
additional postage after he had opened the letter, and 
discovered that it was undercharged. 

Mr. Burnside read much ; not the law only, but 
general literature, the news of the day, and especially 
works on theolog}'. His mind w^as active and inquiring. 
It was often that I heard him speak in private ; but 
verv seldom in public ; }et when he did speak in 
public, he spoke to the point, witli plainness and 



CAKI.'S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 169 

directness, and in a style of elegance that is seldom 
attained bv public speakers. No man used better lan- 
o-uao-e than he for the communication of his ideas. 

Mr. Burnside was of Scotch descent ; his ancestors 
beino- of that colonv that left Scotland alxnit two 
centuries ago, and settled in the northern part of 
Ireland, in County Londonderry, I believe; from 
which they subsequently emigrated to America. In 
that same company came the Irish James Rankni, of 
whom I have before spoken as the father of the beauti- 
ful Anna Rankin, who married the young collegian 
Sam. Andrews ; whose daughter, Anna Andrews, w^as 
the wife of the patriotic blacksmith, Col. Timothy 
Bigelow. I believe that Mr. Burnside's ancestors were 
of the Scotch-Irish who hrst settled Londonderry in 
New Ilampsliire ; and he once told me of the perils 
wiiich his father met with as an early settler on the 
banks of the Connecticut, in the Upper Coos. He was 
liberally educated, and a well read lawyer; and no 
man took a deeper interest than he did in public edu- 
cation. It was but recently that I heard awarded to 
him, by one who seemed to know, the high honor of 
being the author of the law which our legislature 
passed nearly thirty years ago, that gave tlie first 



lyo carl's tour in main street. 

impulse to our modern system of common school 
education. After giving up his liouse and office on 
Main street, he built himself a large and handsome 
residence upon the high grounds of Chestnut street, 
west of Main street, where he enjoyed till his death, 
a few years ago, the affluence he had accumulated. 
If there is any merit in the commendation I liave 
bestowed upon Mr. Burnside as a man and a citizen, 
it is because it is an entirely disinterested commen- 
dation. 

Opposite the residence of Mr. Burnside, at the time 
of which I am writing, at a considerable elevation 
above Main street, stood the Maccarty house. It was 
moved back upon a cross street in the rear, not long 
aftervv'ards, and now stands near the Classical and 
English High School. At the southeast corner of the 
lot, where is now the entrance into Maple street, there 
was one of the ancient stores of the town. My father 
gave me its history ; but it has unfortunately fled from 
me. The house and the store were removed to make 
room for the Brinlev Block, for the erection of which 
with its beautiful Hall, Worcester was indebted, nearly 
twenty 3'ears ago, to the enterprise of our fellow citi- 
zen, Benjamin Butman, Esq. The utilitarian spirit 



carl's tour in main street. 171 

got possession of the hall a few years ago, and some- 
what marred its architectural effect by substituting iron 
posts for its elegant wooden columns. 

The Maccarty house, at the time of which I am 
speaking, was occupied b} the widow of Nathaniel 
Maccarty, who died but a few^ years before. He was 
the twelfth child of the Rev. Nathaniel Maccarty, the 
third minister settled in Worcester. My father re- 
membered the minister, and spoke of him as he ap- 
peared to him in his youth— a tall, spare man, with 
dark complexion, and large, bright eyes, too old or too 
feeble to preach often. He had been settled here at 
that time between thirty and forty years ; and was evi- 
dently a preacher of a good deal of ability and influence. 
Rev. Mr. Maccarty's wife was the daughter of a Welsh- 
man, who was a wealthy merchant in Boston, by the 
name of Gatcomb. They lived at the parsonage, 
which stood south of the Common, on what is now 
Park street ; and they had the poor minister's fortune, 
a small salary and a large family; she having been 
the mother of four daughters, and eleven sons, several 
of whom died in their infancy. Nathaniel, whose resi- 
dence was where Brinlev Hall* now stands, w as the 



*Now called Grand Army Hall. 



172 carl's tour in main street. 

tenth son. In youth he was apprenticed to Isaiah 
Thomas, to learn the trade of a printer ; and while in 
the employ of Mr. Thomas, he was sent out, once i^i 
each week, as a postrider, from Worcester, to carry 
newspapers and letters into the towns in the northerly 
part of Worcester county. Whether he learned the 
trade of a printer, or not, I am imable to say; but I 
remember to have heard my father say that he made a 
fortune in trade, in some country town I think it was 
Petersham-^and came back to Worcester to enjoy it in 
the quiet town of his nativity. I had no personal 
knowledge of the man, nor any recollection of him. 
As we passed the house, a young lawyer by the 

name of G F now of New York — came out of 

the gate. Mv father spoke with him ; and Mr. F 

told him that he slept in the house because the old 
lady had become very much excited and alarmed by an 
anonymous letter she had received, from some unknow^n 
individual, threatening to murder her if she did not 
send a large sum of money to the writer. It was not 
long after the murder of old Mr, White of Salem, w^hich 
produced an intense sensation in all this section of the 
country, and which made us voung folks tremble in 
our beds whenever the wind rattled a blind upon our 



carl's toi;k in main street. 173 

house. Mr. F told my fatlier who he thought was 

the writer of the letter ; and my father asked me if 
I heard the name ; and upon my answering in the 
affirmative, he said I must never lisp it to any person, 
if I did, perhaps the writer of the letter would murder 
me. I have faithfully kept the secret to this day ; and 
never have I seen that individual about town, from that 
time to this, but I have felt towards him the same 
aversion which the eccentric John Randolph enter- 
tained towards a harmless portion of the brute creation, 
when he saitl : •' I would go forty rods am' time to 
kick a sheep." 

Mr. Maccarty, by his will, left a small sum of 
money — I think it was $500 — the interest of which 
was to be spent in setting out trees and ornamenting 
the grounds of the State Lunatic Hospital, which was 
erected here about the time of his death. 

With the late Mr. Foster, my acquaintance never 
w^ent beyond that of an inconsiderable recognition. 
His father, I have understood, was a man of note, and 
lived in Brookfield when that tow^n was a place of 
more notoriety ,than Worcester. I find his name 
among the men who represented Massachusetts in 
congress wiien John Adams was president of the 



174 carl's tour IX AfAIISr STREET. 

United States. The late Mr. Foster was educated for 
the profession of the law ; but other objects seemed to 
engross his attention. He w\as one of the founders of 
Union Church, and contributed liberally of his wealth 
towards the erection of the meeting house, and the 
support of the ministry. I remember him as the first 
president of the Qiiinsigamond Bank, and for several 
years as a trustee and treasurer of the State Lunatic 
Hospital ; and also as a representative and senator in 
the general court, and one of the governor's coun- 
cillors. In whatever contributed to the advancement 
of popular education, he seemed to take more than a 
casual interest, both as a citizen and a member of the 
school committee. Yet it is an opinion that I can not 
withhold, that if he had been dependent for a living 
upon his own efforts, he had the ability to take a high 
rank and make his mark in his profession. But in 
surrendering his law office, and retiring to the quiet of 
private life, he became too much cut off from the 
actualities of life for society to receive, what it might 
otherwise have received, the benefits of his calm 
judgment, high sense of right, and liberal views of 
what every man owes to his fellow men. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Mr. Editor: — I think it was in 1831 that the 
legislature incorporated the Boston & Worcester Rail- 
road Company ; and at the time of which I am writing, 
the road was in process of construction. The cars 
w^ere running on the easterly end; and it was there that 
the trial was made of the first locomotive engine used 
on any railroad in this country. All manner of sneer- 
ing remarks were made about the " tea-kettle on a fire- 
cart." It being in my boy days, I remember well 
what was said of the experiment. No one expected 
that it could be used except at those seasons of the year 
when the rails might be clear of snow ; and it was the 
remark of my father, once when we were looking at 
an engine, that the projectors of the road had no con- 
ception, at the time they took their charter, that they 
could run their cars in any other manner than by 
horse-power ; and he said farther, that w hen they were 
getting the project under way, they proposed that 



176 carl's tour [X MAIN' STREET. 

every man, who chose, should have the right to go 
upon the raih^oad with his own horse and wagon, 
fitted to the track, under the direction of its managers. 
The building of this railroad was a marvel to the 
inhabitants all along the line. Previously they had 
considered a short cut through a hill, for a public 
highway, as a great curiosity to be visited ; and there- 
fore their surprise was great when they saw them 
cutting down hills and filling up valleys, without 
regard to height or depth, and with no apparent con- 
sideration except the straightest line from one point to 
another. The road was not then open to Worcester. 
It was delayed by the deep rock cutting, in the easterly 
part of the town, which is the backbone of the road ; 
but it was staked out to come up to Main street in front 
of the house of Mr. Lincoln, then, as for several years 
previously, the excellent governor of the common- 
wealth ; and for its purposes the company purchased 
the house of the late John W. Stiles. Esq., with his 
garden in the rear. The house was removed not many 
years ago, and the Universalist Church erected upon 
the spot.* 



*The old Universalist Church building of wood still remains on the corner of 
Main and Foster streets. The audience room is known as Continental Hall. 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 



77 



Gov. Lincoln's was a three story brick house, with 
a large yard in front, filled with trees, and shrubs, and 
flowers. To my youthful vision, it was a delightful 
residence ; such as anv man might rejoice to own and 
occupy, and regret to leave. It was but a short time 
afterwards that I passed that way again, and saw that 
It had been touched by the spirit of progress. The 
governor with his men was at work cutting out and 
making up what is now Elm street. There is now a 
church* on the spot, or near to it, where his barn then 
stood ; and the land in the rear were hav-fields and 
corn fields, where are now handsome streets and 
elegant houses. The inansion itself, was greatly 
enlarged, and became the "Worcester House;" and 
the spacious yard in front, cleared of its trees and 
shrubbery, has been filled with an elegant four story 
block. t 

The Worcester House ground has historic associa- 
tions much older than those to which I have referred. 
Before the War of the Revolution broke out, there was 
a Mrs. Sterne kept a small public house on the spot, 
in front of which was the usual tavern sign post, on 



*The present Church of the Unity opposite tlie PubHc Library. 
jThe Lincohi House Block. 

12 



178 carl's tour in main street. 

which swung a sign bearing the emblems of royalty, 
and giving to the house its name of the "King's 
Arms." It was at this house that the tories of the 
town were accustomed to meet, and lament over the 
"terrific radicalism " that not only spoke disrespectfully 
of royalty, but even perpetrated the "great outrage" 
of destroying a large quantity of tea which the East 
India Company had sent to Boston for sale, because 
the government thought it expedient to put a three 
penny tax upon it for the purposes of revenue. In 
the meantime the patriots had an association which 
they called the "American Political Society," which, 
being in opposition to the government, met and acted 
secretly at the " Hancock Arms," near Lincoln 
Square. 

My father related to me as one of his early recol- 
lections the strange occurrences that happened in 
Worcester the vear before the opening of the war. 
They grew out of a controversy betw^een the general 
court and the judges of the supreme court. That 
court at that time — I think it was in 1774 — was com- 
posed of five judges, viz.. Chief Justice Peter Oliver, 
and Associate Justices Trowbridge, Hutchinson, 
Ropes, and Cushing. The general court resolved that 



carl's tour in main street. 179 

any judge should be considered an enemy of the 
country who should consent to receive a salary from 
the crown without a grant from the general court. 
The associate justices signified their assent to the 
wishes of the general court ; but Judge Oliver flung 
the gauntlet at them. The patriots therefore resolved 
that he should hold no more courts, and the jurors 
refused to take their oaths before him. The tories of 
the town were alarmed, and tliey got up a petition to 
the selectmen to call a meeting of the citizens, to 
consider what would be the consequences of the 
course that was being taken towards the government, 
its judges and other officers. The meeting was held 
on the 20th of June, and was addressed by the cele- 
brated tory, Col. James Putnam, who at that time was 
one of the most distinguished lawyers and advocates 
in the country, and was obliged not long afterwards 
to fly to Boston, and subsequently to New Brunswick, 
where, history says, he lived and died a colonial judge. 
There were undoubtedly some splendid men among 
the tory refugees. A protest was offered to the meet- 
ing against the proceedings of the patriot party. It 
was ultra in its doctrines and denunciations, and the 
town refused to receive it. About one in fi^-e only of 



I So carl's tour in main street. 

the voters had signed it ; but having a tory clerk in the 
person of High Sheriff Clark Chandler, the protest- 
ants were so lucky as to have their rejected protest 
entered on the records, and sent to Boston and 
published. "The town w^as in a blaze," my father 
said, "when the trick was discovered." A meeting 
was at once warned for the 3 2d of August. It was 
fully attended ; and a committee was appointed to 
consider what should be done, and report at an 
adjournment two days afterwards. At the adjourned 
meeting the committee reported that the clerk be 
required to expunge, erase, blot out, and forever 
obliterate the obnoxious record ; and they made him 
do it, not onlv with his pen, but by dipping his finger 
in the ink, and rubbing it all over the recorded protest 
in the face and eyes of the whole meeting. They also 
required him to make an acknowledgment of wrong- 
doing before the town. The signers of the protest 
were also required to make a recantation. The patriot 
party proceeded with boldness, and called on their 
brethren in other towns to assemble here, and aid in 
putting down the tory spirit. On the day of the town 
meeting, companies marched in from the countr} 
about to the number of between two and three thou- 



CARI/S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. l8l 

sand. Timothy Paine, Esq., (of whom I ma}^ have 
occasion to speak hereafter), had just been appointed 
one of the mandamus councillors of the royal gov- 
ernor ; and one purpose of the gathering forces was 
to compel him to resign the office, and refuse to 
perform its duties. They sent a committee to Mr. 
Paine, wdio very readily complied with their demand, 
and gave them a writing to that effect. Most of the 
men who had signed the protest were in session at the 
same time at the " King's Arms," where they drew up 
and signed a recantation. But our forefathers did 
nothing by halves. The troops were paraded in two 
lines in Main street, extending from the Court House 
to the Old South Church ; and the recanting signers 
of the protest against the revolutionary spirit and 
movements were taken from the tavern, and with Mr. 
Paine were marched through the open ranks from one 
end of the street to the other, and compelled to stop 
everv few rods, and listen to the reading- of the docu- 
ments they had signed. Such was one scene in life's 
great drama, as enacted in Worcester at the distance 
of eighty-one years in the past, at the season of the 
vear when as now there is a pause in the work of the 
husbandman between the earlier and the later harvests. 



1(52 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

A few of the tory recusants refused to sign any 
retraction ; and I doubt not they were honest in the 
view they took of the condition of public affairs, and 
of the impolicy and inexpediency of the great experi- 
ment in which the people were about to engage — that 
of throwing off allegiance to the British crown, and 
establishing the nationality of the American people. 
For their timidity I can find a rational apology in the 
fact that Great Britain was then powerfully strong, 
and the colonists were weak ; three millions only 
where the people now number twenty-five millions, 
and feeble in resources for sustaining their defences 
against the roval government and its forces. I am not 
surprised at their conservatism, nor at their reluctance 
longer to expose themselves to the imminent risks that 
w^ere sure to come from the struggles of revolution. 
All men are not equally bold ; and averse to assuming- 
the hazards of war, they sought quiet and security by 
abandoning their homes, and placing tliemselves under 
the protection of the crown in its more loyal colonies. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Mr. Editor : — In my last chapter I spoke of the 
opening of Ehn street, through the hay and corn fields 
where have since been cut other streets, on which 
numerous tasteful residences have been erected, sur- 
rounded with yards and gardens, and ornamented with 
trees, shrubs and flowers. On the south side of Elm 
street, fronting on Main, there was a block of land, 
which is now covered by the Butman and the Warren 
blocks, and on which, at that time, stood a two story 
wooden house occupied by the Hon. Calvin Willard, 
then the courteous and efficient sherift' of the county. 
That house was removed, shortly afterwards to Pearl 
street, and has since changed its locality a second time 
to the corner of_Main and Myrtle streets. 

That house is one of the historical points of 
Worcester. It was, as my father informed me at the 



184 carl's tour in main street. 

time, the residence, foi' many years, of the Hon. 
Joseph Allen, father of Hon. Charles Allen, Samuel 
Allen, Esq., and Rev. George Allen, all now resi- 
dents of Worcester. 

The records of Worcester are not ver}- prolific with 
the name of Allen. There was a Rev. Benjamin 
Allen, who came from Sudbury with the party from 
that and neighboring towns who made the first 
permanent settlement here. If I have not already so 
written, I will write it now, that two companies had 
previously made the attempt to settle the place, and 
failed to do so. This Rev. Benjamin Allen does not 
appear to have been a man of mark in the community. 
A grant of land was made to him as a settler in that 
part of the town which lies around the south end, or 
outlet, of Qiiinsigamond lake ; and so far as I can 
discover he lived and died in the quiet, peaceful, and 
independent position of a tiller of the earth. I men- 
tion him oni}^ because he was the first inhabitant of 
Worcester who bore tlie name of Allen. 

Hon. Joseph Allen was undoubtedlv of a diiierent 
family. My father was accustomed to speak of him 
as though he knew him well, had been intimate with 
him, and held him in the highest esteem. I remember 



carl's tour in main street. 185 

that he said that his mother was a sister of Samuel 
Adams, the celebrated patriot of revolutionary times ; 
for whose head, as one of the Boston rebels, the 
British governor of the colony offered a reward ; and 
that his father— if I do not misremember— was a 
highly respectable merchant of Boston, whose name 
was James Allen. As a professional man, Joseph 
would have attained a high rank in the times in which 
he lived ; but after receiving the best English and 
classical education which could be obtained in the 
Boston schools— and they were then the best in the 
country— he turned his attention to mercantile pursuits. 
From his subsequent life, I have no doubt he caught 
the revolutionary spirit from his uncle Sam. Adams, 
who was probably a frequent visitor at his father's 
house : for it is known that some half a dozen years 
before the Declaration of Independence was written, 
just after he had attained his majority, he took a stock 
of goods from Boston, and opened a general store in 
our adjoining town of Leicester ; and that he was 
intimate and active with Col. Henshaw, and the other 
patriot citizens of that town, in all those measures in 
which the New England towns engaged with so much 
earnestness for a period of a few years antecedent to 



i86 carl's tour in main street. 

and during the Revolution. I remember a remark of 
my father, that "Joseph Allen was not born to be a 
shopkeeper ; " that with the ability, he had the taste, 
the education, the acquirements, for a different posi- 
tion in life ; and the people appeared to entertain the 
same opinion, for when the elder Levi Lincoln was 
appointed Judge of Probate, about a year after the 
war commenced, and gave up the office of clerk of 
the courts, which he had held for a year or two, young 
Joseph Allen was considered sufficiently prominent 
to be taken from his store in Leicester, and made his 
successor in the office. For the long period of about 
a third of a century, Mr. Allen continued to discharge 
the duties of clerk of the courts ; and it was the 
remark of my father that even then the people were 
ver}^ strongly opposed to his giving up the position. 
I suppose, from that fact, that the doctrine of rotation 
had not even then become a fundamental principle of 
political action, and that office-seeking, was not then, 
as it now is, a vicious propensity in public men. 

I said that the Allen house, standing where But- 
man Block now stands, with a yard in front, as was 
the custom of the times, was historical. Itv/as on the 
first Monday in September, 1786, — 69 years ago this 



CAKI/S TOUK IN MAIN STREET. 1 87 

month, — that sentries paced Main street back and 
forth in front of that house, to give warning of 
approaching danger. It was a day of wild commo- 
tion ; the day of the Shays RebelUon, an account of 
which as rehited to me by my ffither, I have ah-eady 
o-iven. He saw tfie sentinels. He saw the Shays 
men as they marched into town, through Salisbury 
street, and took possession of the court house, and 
made their headquarters at the "Hancock Arms." 
He saw the judges of the court of common pleas and 
of the sessions, as they came out of Clerk Allen's 
house, on that black Monday, with General Judge 
Ward in front, accompanied by the clerk, sherift' and 
his deputies, and the other officers of the court ; and 
he saw them move with stern and resolute step 
throudi Main street to the court house. He saw them 
met at the door by Capt. Wheeler, of Hubbardston, 
and Capt. Smith of Barre, who ordered the soldiers 
under their command, who filled and surrounded the 
court house, to charge bayonets upon the court and its 
officers. He saw the glittering steel thrust through 
their clothes and pressed hard upon their naked 
bosoms. He saw the brave old chief justice, who 
had seen too much of the perils of war to retreat 



1 66 CARLS TOUR IN MAIX STREET. 

before such an enemy, stand as unmoved as a granite 
rock, and denounce perdition to all who thus opposed 
the progress of the tribunals of justice. He heard 
him, for more than an hour, address the soldiers and 
the great crowd of people that stood about, with the 
bayonets pressing upon him, in tones of earnest and 
indignant remonstrance, until the courage of the 
captains oozed out at their lingers' ends, and their 
bayonets were withdrawn ; when Judge Ward 
adjourned the court to the " United States Arms" 
tavern — afterwards, for a long time, the "Exchange 
Coffee House," and thus close the work of one dark 
day. 

My father once remarked that it was hard for him 
not to sympathize with the Shays men, for they were 
prodigiously oppressed by the action of the courts, 
in piling writs upon writs, and judgments upon judg- 
ments, which had to be answered by forced sales of 
property, at a time when the prices were at a great 
depreciation as the effect of the eight years' war. 

Mr. Allen served his fellow citizens in other 
capacities than that of clerk of the courts. He was 
one of three delegates chosen in 1779 to the conven- 
tion to frame, the constitution of Massachusetts ; the 



CARI.'S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 1 89 

elder Lincoln, and farmer David Bisrelow being: the 
other two. He was also town clerk tor at least one 
year, and a member of the board of selectmen ; and 
as an active whig co-operated with the revolutionary 
committees in their correspondence and addresses, and 
resolves, and in all their measures for carrying forward 
the war. In later days he was a member of congress 
for one term ; and for several years, of the State 
council. 

Having experienced the benefits of an early educa- 
tion, Mr. Allen was early engaged in promoting the 
cause of popular education. He was one of the 
company, spoken of in a former chapter, that built 
the old Centre School House as an institution of 
learning above the grade of the common schools ; and 
ever retaining a deep interest in the town where he 
first made a residence in the country, he engaged in 
laying the foundations of that excellent seminary, the 
Leicester Academy ; of which for a long time he w^as 
the faithful and efficient treasurer ; keeping the moneys 
with the most scrupulous exactness, and with that 
high sense of mercantile honor which \vas so peculiar 
to former sfenerations of merchants. He was also 
united with others in organizing the Second Parish in 



190 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

Worcester, of which through life he was an earnest 
and useful member. He retained his early habits of 
study and reading to the close of his life ; and it was 
the remark of all his acquaintances, that beside being 
one of the most upright of men in all the relations of 
society, he was the most courteous and urbane of all 
the gentlemen of his day, and too generous in his 
sentiments and feelings to be a mere accumulator of 
w^ealth. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Mr. Editor: — While we 'were in front of the 
Allen house my father pointed to a house opposite, on 
the east side of Main street, at the corner of Mechanic 
street; and remarked: "That is the Denny house; 
^vhere lived and died my friend Austin Denny." Of 
him I have spoken in a former chapter. He had a 
brother Daniel, who is one of the most respected 
merchants in Boston ; and their father's name was 
Daniel, wdio more tlian half a century ago set up the 
business of manufacturing cards in Worcester. The 
house ^vas vacated not many years after the time of 
w^hich I am writing ; and was converted to the pur- 
poses of trade. It took fire one night, and was totally 
destroyed, with two or three small buildings that 
stood north of it. A larger building was then erected 
upon the same ground ; and three or four years after- 
wards, in a calm and beautiful night, that was burned 
also. 



192 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

On the opposite corner of Mechanic street, stood a 
low one story building, recently removed, which was 
then occuDied as a " stag^e office;" and where more 
stage business was at that time transacted than at 
almost any other place in the state out of Boston. 
And next to it was the "United States Hotel;" 
then the principal public house in the town, and kept 
in a superior manner, for those days, by the late 
James Worthington, and afterwards by Worthington 
& Clark. It was on this spot, my father remarked, 
that the first tavern was opened in Worcester, by a 
man by the name of Moses Rice, who came here for 
that purpose shortly after the third company of settlers 
had effected a permanent settlement of the place. He 
said further, that it was the only tavern within a circle 
of twelve miles ; and although the travellers were not 
numerous, yet landlord Rice was supposed to have 
prospered well, with such support as he received from 
the public and the settlers. In the progress of time 
the little inn by the wayside gave way to a new and 
larger house, from a sign post in front of which 
blazoned forth the emblem of its name, the " Sun 
Tavern." It was at this public house that Judge 
Ward opened his court on the first Monday in De- 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. I93 

cember, 17S6; it beinf^ an adjournment from the 
preceding September. That adjournment took place 
at the " United States Arms," after the scene at the 
court house, spoken of in my last chapter. It is said 
to have been the purpose of the court to meet at the 
house where the adjournment took place ; but when 
the first Alonday in December came, the Shavs men 
took possession of the "United vStates Arms;" and 
thus compelled the court to open its term at the " Sun 
Tavern." No business, however, was transacted on 
that day ; and the court adjourned to January, to give 
the governor time to send troops enough into town 
from Suffolk, Middlesex and Hampshire counties, to 
sustain the tribunals of justice, and quench the fires of 
rebellion. 

I do not, at this late day, remember whether my 
father told me, or not, wdiat became of the " Sun 
Tavern;" but I remember he said that the "United 
States Hotel" was erected by our townsman, Mr. 
William Hovey. 

Since the above was written, Mr. Hovey has de- 
ceased. He was a man of far more than ordinary 
powers of mind, and of mechanical genius ; and, in 
his earlier days, of energy and enterprize. Besides 

13 



194 CARL S TOUR IX MAIX STREET. 

the " United vStates Hotel," he erected other buildings 
which were of better character than the architecture of 
Worcester had previously been. I think that it was 
the remark of my father that among the houses which 
Mr. Hovey built was the double brick one on what 
was once called " Nobility Hill," the west side of 
Main street, opposite the southwest corner of the 
public common ; and the handsome house which for a 
long time was the residence of Rejoice Newton, Esq. 
on Front street, next east of the Norwich and Wor- 
cester Railroad. 

After the erection of the Worcester House, and the 
American Temperance House, the " United States 
Hotel" began to decline. It passed through various 
stages in the process of dilapidation, as a public house, 
until, like a broken merchant, it shifted its position to 
a second-class street, and nov/ stands — for what pur- 
pose I can better guess than tell — upon Mechanic 
street, a little west of the railroad ; and where nearly 
one hundred and forty years ago, Moses Rice opened 
the first inn between Marlborough and Brookfield, for 
the accommodation of travellers between the settle- 
ment of Springfield on the Connecticut river and 
Boston, and where the " Sun Tavern" was afterwards 



CART. S TOUR IX xMAIX STREET. 1 95 

built, was last year erected a splendid four story 
block,* by William C. Clark ; which, in the com- 
parison with the early wayside Inn, marks the progress 
the community has made in wealth, in thrift and 
in the cultiyation of the arts of peace. 

Mechanic street, which runs from Main street 
eastwardly, is an old road, though not as old as Front 
street. It is supposed that the public common, which 
was originally much larger than it now is, came well 
nigh to Mechanic street. That street, as appears of 
record. Is now nearly seyenty years old, having been 
opened as long ago as 17S7; but for what reason, I 
know^ not, unless that after the ancient burial ground 
upon the east side of the common had become so 
much occupied by the graves of the early settlers and 
their descendants, that the town then took up a lot on 
Mechanic street, and a road was opened to it from 
Main street. There were buildings of ancient appear- 
ance standing upon it as long ago as I remember 
anything in the topography of Worcester. It Is within 
my recollection that the meadow once came quite up 
to Mechanic street at one or two points ; and I often 
heard my father say that there was once a dam, built 



*Now called the Walker Building 



196 carl's tour in main street. 

by beavers, near where the raih'oad bridge now 
stands ; and that in his younger days it used to be 
excellent skating every year, in the winter season, 
over a large jDroportion of the ground between Main 
street on the west, Summer street on the east, Me- 
chanic street on the south and School street on the 
north ; or, rather, perhaps, as far up as the dam of 
the " Corduroy Factory" — now the site of the School 
street mills ; ground which, twenty years ago, was 
in part the basin of the Blackstone canal ; but which 
is now mostly covered with houses and mechanics' 
shops ; and on wdiich, in June 1S54, mechanical prop- 
erty was destroyed, in one single fire, of the value of 
at least $300,000. The beavers perished long since ; 
their old foes, the Nipmuck Indians, are almost in 
oblivion ; the skaters are gone ; the devastating flames 
were scarcely quenched before the wand of " the In- 
dustry of freedom" was waved over the ashes, and 
other and more substantial edifices have arisen, that 
are already the busy hives of industrious, intelligent 
and skillful mechanics ; the innumerable products of 
whose ingenuity, skill and mechanical precision, in all 
the forms in which the various woods and metals are 
wT'ought, are daily sent forth to all parts of the country 



carl's tour IX MAIN STREET. 1 97 

where the earth is tilled, the waterfall turns the busy 
wheel, the steam engine elaborates power from fire 
and water, or civilization avails itself of the conven- 
iences and comforts which the mechanic arts afford. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Mr. Editor : — On the west side of Main street, a 
little farther south than the United States Hotel, stood 
the house which had long been occupied by the Hon. 
Natlianiel Paine ; and beyond the house, on the cor- 
ner of Pleasant street, w^as a small, one story wooden 
building, which had been occupied by Mr. Paine when 
a practising lawyer, and, before he assumed the office 
of Judge of Probate. What became of the little office, 
I am not able to say ; but the house was moved from 
its foundations years ago, and now stands upon the 
west side of Salem street. The ground is now covered 
by the four story brick building known as Paine's 
block ;* and in the rear, where once was the garden, 
now^ stands the brick church of the second Baptist 
Society, and other buildings devoted to various pur- 
poses of trade. There is nothing there now to remind 

*Now owned by T. AI . Rogers, and the Woodward and Kinnicutt heirs. 



carl's tour in main street. 199 

me of the quiet old mansion of Judge Paine, as it was 
when my boy eyes first surveyed it. 

My father said that the Paines were an old family 
in Worcester ; that they came here, in the early days 
of the town, from the point of land that projects down 
south of vSeekonk plains, and makes a dividing point 
between the waters of Narragansett and Mount Hope 
Bays ; where the town of Bristol now stands. As 
long ago as 1709, as appears from the ^Massachusetts 
records, the grandfather of the late Judge Paine, 
(Nathaniel, of Bristol,) had his attention directed to 
the '' chestnut lands " upon the west side of Qiiinsiga- 
mond Lake. It happened in this way. Joseph 
Sawyer and others, petitioned the general court to 
survey and grant them the lands upon the west side of 
the lake, that they might make another efibrt to estab- 
lish a settlement here. The Council granted the 
request, and ordered the appointment of commission- 
ers to carry into etlect the prayer of the petitioners. 
Nathaniel Paine, of Bristol, was named in the order- 
as one of the commissioners. But the order was lost 
in the house. I cannot assert it as a fact, and I cannot 
now ascertain the truth of it, but it is now my impres- 
sion that Nathaniel, of Bristol, was early a proprietor 



200 CARL S TOUR IX MAIN STRKET. 

of the land now known as the Paine estate hi the 
upper part of Lincohi street ; and that he may have 
come into possession of it by pinchase from Nathaniel 
Henchman, who owned what was afterwards the Lin- 
coln farm, and whose house, if I remember the spot 
where ni}- father said it stood, was in the Lincoln 
garden, a little east of the old or original road, trav- 
elled between Boston and Springfield, which then 
run along by the side of Lincoln Pond, and across the 
land which is now known as " Hamilton Square." 
It must have been, however, nearly twenty years after 
the first permanent settlement in Worcester, that 
Nathaniel, of Bristol, occupied the Paine estate ; for 
his son Timothy, (the father of the late Judge of Pro- 
bate,) was but a lad, not then in his teens, when he 
became a resident in Worcester. He was a vouns: 
man of promise, and- was early sent to the college of 
Cambridge, where he graduated at the early age of 
eighteen. He was designed for the profession of law ; 
but at that time the business of making: writs and 
deeds was carried on by a set of " Caleb Qiiotems," 
who dickered in other things beside the law, and 
impaired the prospect for a voung man wdiose purpose 
it was to obtain a living by his profession. It was 



CARL S TOUR IX MAIX STREET. 20I 

about the same time also that the afterwards celebrated 
James Putnam came Into town from Salem, and 
opened a law office. Young Tlmoth\- Paine was 
intimate with him and profited much from his friend- 
ship. Having the ofier of the place of clerk of the 
courts he accepted the office, the duties of which he 
discharged for a period of twenty-four years, until the 
suspension of the administration of justice in i774- 
For a period of ten years, he also performed the duties 
of register of probate, and likewise of register of deeds ; 
and for quite a number of years he was also one of the 
selectmen and town clerk. I mention these facts to 
show the estimation in which Timotiiy Paine \yas 
held by his fellow citizens of the town and county : 
and as eyidence that he was then a man of mark in 
the community. You remember that I gave some 
account, in a former chapter, of his haying received 
the appointment of Mandamus Councillor to the royal 
ofovernor ; and of the mode and manner in which he 
\yas induced to resign it, by the interference of the 
patriot party, backed up by the three thousand armed 
men who came into town to compel the tories to take 
back their protest against the patriot cause. Mr. 
Paine appears to ha\e borne himself in a dignified 



202 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

and honorable manner on that trying occasion ; and 
that he retained the confidence and esteem of his 
townsmen, is manifest from the fact that while the 
war was in progress, as appears on record, he was 
appointed chairman of a committee of the town to 
protest, to the legislature, against the imposition of 
taxes for the support of government, upon spirituous 
liquors, teas, and other articles ; and that when the 
revolution had gone by, the animosities of parties had 
subsided, and civil freedom was assuming the form 
and the strength of well-regulated constitutional liberty, 
he represented the town for two years in the general 
court. 

My father said that Timothy Paine had three sons ; 
all of whom he knew. Their names w^ere William, 
Samuel, and Nathaniel ; and that he had the ability 
to give them a good education, is apparent from the 
fact that they all graduated at Harvard College in a 
period of seven years. The oldest was William, of 
wdiom I have spoken in a former chapter. He was 
born about the time that his lather was appointed 
clerk of the courts, and was a pupil of the elder Adams 
while he was living here as a law student in James 
Putnam's office. After leaving college he studied 



CARl/S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 203 

medicine in Salem, with that celebrated medical prac- 
titioner, Dr. Holyoke, whom my father said that he 
once saw w^alking the streets of that city, when his 
head had been frosted with a century of winters. He 
was one of the signers of the Protest, already spoken 
of, and for that reason was obliged to take up his resi- 
dence as a refugee in a foreign land. But as he came 
back and lived many years on the ancestral estate, it 
is manifest that political sins, even in those days, were 
not of that class which a good life can not wipe out. 
The funeral of Dr. Paine, as it moved from his resi- 
dence on the afternoon of a spring day, something 
more than twenty years ago, is among the recollec- 
tions of my early days. The estate is still owned and 
occupied by the Paine family, of the third and fourth 
o-enerations in descent from Nathaniel, of Bristol. 

Samuel, the second son of Timothy Paine, who 
is recorded as a graduate of Harvard College in 1771 
—three years atier. William, and four years before 
Nathaniel — assisted his father in his office of clerk and 
register, and became involved as one of the signers of 
the Protest. He went to the provinces, and found 
employment and support in the British service until 
after the war was over. 



204 carl's tour in main street. 

The third son of Timothy, was the late Nathaniel 
Paine, whose residence I have pointed out in the 
opening of this chapter. He was well known to the 
people of Worcester and of the countv, having filled 
the office of Judge of Probate for more than a third of 
a century. I remember his person as he appeared 
in the probate court, with the venerable Theophilus 
Wheeler for his register, on one occasion when my 
father said to me: " Come, Carl go with me, and I 
will show you the probate court, where the estates of 
dead men are settled up, and disposed of according to 
law ! " But I have no knowledge of Judge Paine that 
would enable me to present anything like a truthful 
analvsis of his character ; though I remember that an 
accident, which is too personal in its nature to be here 
related, once threw me in his way ; and that he was 
pleased to compliment me to my face, for an act I 
performed, in a manner that satisfied me, at least, that 
he was a man of excellent discernment, of a hi^h 
sense of right, and of much native goodness of heart ; 
the worthy son of a worth}- sire. 

\'ours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

]\Tr. Editor : — Opposite the residence of Judge 
Paine, and on the corner of Main and Front streets, 
stood twenty years ago, as it did years afterwards, a 
long, low building known as "The Old Compound." 
What it derived its name from, I have not been able 
to discover. When William Harrington, Esq., built 
his four-storv block up on the site, the " Old Com- 
pound " was shoved off its ancient foundations ; and 
now, somewhat modernized, it stands on the north side 
of Pleasant street, on land which was once a part of 
Judge Paine's garden.* Upon the sidewalk, in front 
of it, wx met a tall, slender gentleman, whom my 
father shook hands with, and addressed, as " Friend 
Brooks." They spoke of the times when Mr. Brooks 
kept a store in that building, and dealt out to the good 
people of the town and vicinity such articles as passed 



*This spot is now occupied by the Odd Fellows' Building 



2o6 carl's tour in main street. 

under the general appellation of " Dry Goods and 
West India Goods and Groceries ; " meaning thereby 
rum, molasses and sugar, from the West Indies; teas, 
spices, and cotton cloths from the East Indies, and 
chintzes and hardware from Eng-land. The Mr. 
Brooks, addressed by my father, I recognized after- 
v/ards as the crier of the courts. If my memory 
seryes me, it was my father's remark that the " Old 
Compound," or at least sonie part- of it, was built by 
one of the Chandlers, and was occupied by him as a 
store some time in the last century. When we passed 
it, there was a stoye shop in the corner ; a barber's 
shop kept by Mr. Weiss ; and one or two other shops. 
As one of the ancient points in Main street, I could 
not pass it in this my history of former days. 

My father directed my attention to an antique 
house, and store near by which stood upon the west 
side of Main street, south of Pleasant street. In its 
day, it must haye been one of the handsomest resi- 
dences in Main street; with its spacious yard and 
garden ; its trees and shrubbery. It gaye place not 
long afterwards to the three story brick block, erected 
by Messrs. Merrick & Dowley, who were then exten- 
siyely engaged here in the boot and leather business ; 



CARL S TOL'R IX MAIN STREET. 207 

and now the old house stands a memorial of a past 
century, on Blackstone street, east of the branch of the 
Worcester and Nashua railroad. 

" That house," said ni}' father, " was once the 
residence of John Nazro ; a showy man, and withal, 
somewhat consequential." He said that jMr. Xazro 
was at one time, before the commencement of the 
revolution, extensively engaged in the manufacture of 
potash, and had his buildings for that purpose on the 
west side of Lincoln street, a little wav above the 
" Hancock Arms." He was accustomed to tell, with 
much zest, an anecdote of John Nazro. It was after 
this fashion. Nazro prided himself upon having an 
excellent garden ; and, like all good gardeners of 
the present day, he could not endure to have it 
trespassed upon bv his neighbor's hens. Among his 
neighbors there was one, wdio was always ripe for fun, 
by the name of Healev, who lived up Pleasant street. 
Meeting him one day, Nazro in something of a pet, 
said to him : 

" Healey, if you don't keep your hens out of my 
garden, I'll shoot them ! " 

"Shoot just as many as you please, Mr. Nazro ; 
onlv send them home after you have shot them." 



3o8 carl's tour in main street. 

Accordingly every day or two, Healey feasted from 
a fat hen which had paid the price of her temerity in 
venturing into Mr. Nazro's cultivated premises. Nazro 
v\^as excessively mortified at the discovery he at length 
made, that Healey was not the owner of a single hen ; 
but that they all belonged to a good widow lady who 
lived the south side of his garden ; and as he was a 
man of gallantry, he rendered her compensation more 
valuable than apologies. As for Healey, he did not 
fail to remind Nazro every summer afterwards, to 
send home the hens he shot. Nazro's garden, con- 
siderably shorn of its dimensions, is now, (1S55,) in 
the market at a valuation of about $50,000. I mention 
this as an evidence of the change that time has made 
in Main street. 

Opposite the Nazro place, on the north-west cor- 
ner of the public common, stood the Town Hall. It 
is now a part of the City Hall — having been enlarged 
to nearly double its former capacity. The original 
building, as appears from the records, was erected 
thirty years ago, in 1825. In the basement there was 
a store and an engine house ; on the first floor, the 
hall used by the town, which was entered by two 
doors in front, between which was a small room 



CART. S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 209 

occupied by the selectmen ; and the upper story was 
divided by a partition, running lengthwise, into two 
halls ; one of wdiich, the north one, was for public 
purposes, and the other, the south one, was occupied 
by the Freemasons. Before the erection of the Town 
Hall, the town held its meetings in the south meeting 
house — that having been for a long time the property 
of the parish, and the town and the parish ])eing sub- 
stantially the same. 

It being the dav of the annual cattle show we went 
into the hall, which was excessively crowded by men 
and women, youths and maidens, boys and girls, the 
substantial yeomanry of the town and countv, who 
had come in to see the exhibition, and participate in 
the festivities of a sort of annual " harvest home." I 
had never before seen a cattle show ; but have seen 
too many since, and the public have seen too many^ 
to admit of any particular interest being derived from 
any description I might give of it. There was one 
peculiar feature, however, in that exhibition, which I 
have missed in the exhibitions of late years, and 
which, I think, constituted a very appropriate part of 
the show. It was the multitude of products, that 
were on exhibition, of female handicraft, ingenuity. 



2IO CARL S TOUR IX MAIN STREET. 

and taste, in the shape of needlework, spun and woven 
work, and things useful and things ornamental, which 
excited the emulation of the ladies, and made the show 
a brighter and merrier affair than it has been since 
that most important and useful branch of the annual 
exhibition was given up by the society. 

I have seen the statement, and probably it is cor- 
rect, that the land for the common was originally 
given to the town for the purposes of a common, the 
church, a school house, and a training field. At the 
time of which I am speaking it was not fenced in, 
except the ancient burial ground on the east side. It 
was traversed by two roads — one running from the 
north-west to the south-east corners, and the other 
from the south-west to the north-east corners. Near 
the centre, stood the hearse house, and also the gun 
house of that formidable military organization, the 
Worcester Artillery, commanded by that veteran, 
Capt. Joseph Avery, who now enjoys the "blushing 
honors," then won in service, in his rural retreat 
near the borders of the town of Holden. 

I remember that there was a hot discussion about 
infringing upon somebody's rights, when the town, 
years afterwards, voted to enclose the common with a 



CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 211 

fence ; and compel people to ride around it ; instead 
of across it ; as also when permission was given for a 
portion of it to be occupied by that nuisance, the Nor- 
wich railroad track. 

In its day, when the town was much smaller than 
it now is, the public common answered well the pur- 
poses for which it was originally designed. But the 
city, as the successor of the ancient town, has out- 
grown its former conveniences. For cattle shows, 
and like public exhibitions and occasions, other and 
larger accommodations had become necessary ; and I 
doubt not that when another twenty years shall have 
passed by, the public will acknowledge and commend 
the propriety of the expenditure that has been made 
for other and more spacious public grounds. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

J/r. Editor: — It was stated in the last chapter 
of this my veritable histor}^ of Main street, that the 
public common was originally given to the town for 
the purposes of education, the church, and a training 
field. In the early days of New England the church 
and the town, the ecclesiastical and civil organiza- 
tions, were nearly synonymous. The two powers 
were so closely identified as to be almost one in their 
exercise. 

It was in 1713 that the third settlement — the first 
permanent one — w^as made in Worcester. It struggled 
through many hardships; and even in 1721, when 
Gershom and Jonas Rice, as a committee of the 
landed proprietors, applied to the general court, 
through John Houghton, the representative of Lan- 
caster, for an act of incorporation, they begged of that 



carl's tour IX xMAIN STREET. 213 

bodv to bestow its " serious thouo^htfulness for the 
poor distressed town of Worcester." It was about 
one hundred and forty years ago that the scattered set- 
tlers were accustomed to gather themselves together, 
of Sunday mornings, each man with his loaded gun, 
at the los: house of Gershom Rice, which stood on the 
south side of the Hassanamesitt (Grafton) road, on 
the side of Sagatabscot hill ; and there they planted 
the first church in Worcester. Daniel Heywood, 
from Concord, and Nathaniel Moore from Sudbury, 
were the first deacons. After meeting in this way 
till 1 71 7, the community united in a general contribu- 
tion of timbers, and erected a log house as a place of 
worship, on a spot of land near the junction of Green 
and Franklin streets ;* the worshippers crossing Bime- 
lick brook, from one side to the other, wdiere Front 
street now^ is, and at the other places, upon trees that 
had fallen across the water. But even in those rude 
times, the people prided themselves upon their meet- 
ing house ; and in 17 19 they ventured upon the great 
w^ork of rearing and completing a frame house, upon 



*This "first meeting-house" probably never existed; for an entr>' in the 
Town Books indicates that the private house of James Rice, which stood near 
where it is claimed the log structure was built, was used for public worship before 
the meeting-house on the Common was erected. 



214 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

the spot now occupied by the " Old South Church," 
on the west side of the common, and east side of Main 
street. It w^as a plain, barn-like building, without 
steeple, and filled with coarse, rude benches. Every 
year, some improvements were made upon it ; the 
general court at one time making a small grant for its 
completion. With the money given by the court, 
the town made a pulpit, and put in some permanent 
seats. There arose a controversy, which, as I have 
reason to believe, lasted as long as the meeting house 
lasted, upon the manner in which the seats should be 
occupied. Wealth and famil}^ considerations, and 
especially the amount of taxes paid, were claimed as 
passports to the best seats in the meeting house ; and 
this gave rise to many heart-burnings and bickerings. 
Some ten years after the raising of the frame, the 
house had progressed so far towards a completion, 
that Capt. Adam Winthrop, one of the Marlborough 
settlers, who early became a proprietor of lands in the 
town and was evidently an energetic and liberal man, 
made the generous donation of a set of pulpit cushions ; 
for which the inhabitants, in town meeting assembled, 
voted him their thanks ; and, I doubt not, if they had 
had a newspaper, they would have voted its publica- 



CARI, S TOUR 1\ MAIN STREET. 21 5 

tion, provided — as Is frequently done at this day — the 
printer would do it ''free gratis, for nothing," which 
is susceptible of the free translation, ivithout expeiise 
to a?iyo7ze but JitDiself. 

In 1739 — eight years after the county of Worcester 
was incorporated — a bell was deemed a necessity for the 
town and the county ; and the two corporations united 
In a copartnership, and purchased a bell, which was 
suspended upon frame work about equal distance from 
the meeting house and the court house, on or near the 
lot of land now occupied by the City Hotel. But 
tradition says that there were disagreements between 
the parties as to the custody and use of the bell ; and 
the town then bousfht out all the interest which the 
county had In the bell ; and proceeded In 1743 to erect 
a steeple on the church, to which the \)q\\ was trans- 
ferred as soon as It was completed. 

In 1763, when the first generation of church mem- 
bers had passed away, and the second had come upon 
the stage, a larger meeting house was found to be 
necessary. The present house was then erected. It 
has been increased In length, and been modified In 
some particulars, from time to time ; yet In all Its 
essential parts It now stands, upon the same ground 



2i6 carl's tour in maix street. 

occupied by the little church of 1719 — a specimen of 
church architecture ninetv-two years aofo. 

It is not my purpose to give tlie history of the first 
parish in Worcester : it yvoulcl occupy too much of 
your columns, even if I had the ability to present it ; 
and there would probably be but little to distinguish 
it from the general history of all similar organizations. 

There w^ere contests about ministers, often acri- 
monious ; there was the usual amount of discords 
among the singers, about the seats they should occupy 
in the meeting house — who should tune and time the 
music — and especially about that great innovation, as 
it was regarded, the giving up of the deaconing of 
each line of the psalm before it was sung. 

The first minister ordained here, w^as the Rev. 
Andrew Gardner. He orginated in Brookline, near 
Boston, and had been out of college long enough to 
have reached ^vhat is called the " age of discretion " 
wdien he was settled in the ministry. But the story 
has always been, that he was one of those strangely 
constituted men who have but little adaptedness for 
the ministry. He was eccentric in his manners ; 
loved his dog and his gun better than his study, and 
often chased the deer and other irame throu^'h the 



carl's TOL^R IX MAIN STREET. 21 7 

woods that covered the hills and skirted the ponds. 
The parish was poor ; his salary was small ; and as 
the people had no special attachment to their minister, 
thev were dilatory and negligent in making their pay- 
ments. Probably with the hope of mortifying his 
parishioners, quite as much as from motives of charity, 
he one Saturdav afternoon took from his feet all the 
shoes he had, and gave them to a beggar ; and 
the next day walked to church and preached through 
the day in his stockings. He took his dismission 
about three years after his ordination ; and thus left 
the o-round clear for successors of more becoming 
deportment. 

Among the ministers of the first parish who suc- 
ceeded Mr. Gardner, were Rev. Isaac Burr, who filled 
the place for a period of twenty years ; Rev. Thaddeus 
Maccarty, for nearly forty years ; and Rev. Dr. Aus- 
tin, for nearly thirty years. The first sermon I ever 
heard in that house, was preached by Rev. Rodney 
A. Miller, several years after his ordmation, which 
took place in 1S27. 

As we were walking upon the common, my father 
pointed out to me the house which v>-as for a long 
time the residence of Rev. Mr. Maccarty, and where 



2i8 carl's tour in main street. 

his fourteen children were born. It was an old house 
when I saw it, two stories high and two rooms on 
the ground of the main building, with a projection in 
the rear ; and stood, facing the common, on the south 
side of South street — now Park street — on what is 
now a vacant lot at the corner of Portland street. 

My recollections of the building are foint, as it 
was either torn down or moved away not long after I 
first saw it. 

The Old South Church is historical ; and I should 
regret, on that account, any change that should remove 
it as one of the religious and civil landmarks of the 
town. It was not only the altar where our forefathers 
worshipped ; but was also the place where for a long 
time the town transacted all its municipal business. It 
was there that the town held its meetings, and passed 
its resolutions relating to the controversy between the 
colonies and the mother country prior to the revolu- 
tion. It was from one of its porches — my father said 
it had three at that time, besides the steeple — tliat 
Isaiah Thomas read the Declaration of 1776 to the 
assembled people. And it was there that the town 
voted those supplies of men and money that helped 
materially in carrying forward the war to its consum- 



carl's tour in main street. 219 

mation in the peace of 1783. May it long remain, 
as a point within our borders, hallowed by the relig- 
ious associations of a century and a third of progress 
and consecrated by the highest devotions of patriotism ! 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Mr. Editor: — "That is where tory Jones kept a 
tavern," said my father ; at the same time pointing to 
a place a Httle way south of the common.* And he 
then told me a story about the two spies that came 
here from the British army in Boston about a month 
before the battles of Lexington and Concord ; and I 
have found his narrative confirmed by the documents, 
papers and records of that time. It appears to have 
been the intention of Gen. Gage to march his army 
from Concord to Worcester, and thus destroy all the 
means of the revolutionists for resistance to British 
authority ; and as a preliminary step, he desjjatched 
Captain Brown, of the 53d regiment of infantry, and 
Ensign Bernicre, of the loth, to examine all the roads 
and streams and bridges, and make a general plan of 
the route, with an account of all such places, as hills 



*This tavern stood on Main street, about opposite the entrance to Chatham 
street. 



carl's tour in main street. 221 

or passes, where an expedition would be likely to 
meet with resistance. Accordingly in the month of 
March, 1775, they laid aside their red coats and cocked 
hats, dressed themselves in the plain dress of country 
farmers, and set off for Worcester by the way of Cam- 
bridge and Framingham and Shrewsbury. Travelling 
on foot they arrived at the head of Qiiinsigamond 
pond in the afternoon of the second day ; and that was 
considered by them a pass of so much importance that 
they stopped there and made a careful sketch of the 
hills and hollows, which, with other plans drawn by 
them, were found among the papers of the British 
officers after the evacuation of Boston. Having com- 
pleted that sketch they walked on, a distance of four 
miles, as they marked on the plan of their route, 
throueh Lincoln and Main streets, and arrived just at 
dark at Jones's tavern, south of the common. It was 
Saturday night. They thought that no one observed 
them ; but they were not aware that there existed here, 
at the time, a secret political society, composed of thirty 
or forty of the patriot citizens of the town, who 
watched closely every movement of strangers as well 
as of their own people. It was therefore not possible 
for two strangers to walk through -Slain street, at that 



233 CARLS TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

day, with the military air and gait which they could 
not lay aside nor wholly conceal, and not be observed 
by some of the secret association. They went to tory 
Jones's tavern ; called for a plain supper and lodgings, 
and fell into conversation with Jones. Carefully ap- 
proaching the subject they discovered that his sym- 
pathies were all on their side. Among other things 
which he set before them was the proscribed tea ; and 
as the next day was Sunday, during which no person 
was allowed to travel, or even walk the streets unless 
he could give a good reason why he did so, they 
prudently kept in their chamber, and passed the day 
in perfecting their sketches, and in writing out a 
description of the route they had travelled. In the 
evening of Sunday they walked out upon the east 
side of the village, went upon " Chandler Hill," and 
such other eminences as commanded the village, and 
sketched their position with reference to each other 
and the town. Their plans contemplated a fortifi- 
cation on " Chandler Hill," and camping ground for 
two regiments. After making their examinations and 
plans, they went back to the tavern ; and in a short 
time landlord Jones entered their room, and informed 
them that two of the tories of the town had called and 



CARL S TOUR IX MAIN STREET. 333 

desired to haxe an interxiew with them. Even ton- 
Jones had the common infirmity of landlords ; he 
could not have a distinguished guest in his house, and 
not communicate the fact to his friends. But the two 
British spies declined to speak Vvith their outside 
friends, and told landlord Jones to say to them that 
they were nothing but two sailors recentlv from sea, 
who wxre travelling into the country, and were not in 
a fit condition to make the acquaintance of gentlemen. 
Tory Jones bore the message to his friends, and came 
back with one from them, the purport of which was 
that they knew who they were, and what they were 
here for, and intimating to them that it would be well 
that they should be cautious about exposing them- 
selves, lest their presence here should subject the 
tories of Worcester to the same inconvenience and 
indignitv, to which their tory friends of Petersham 
and other places had been subjected, in being disarmed 
and deprived of all means of self-defense. 

Aware that they were in great danger of being- 
discovered and detained, the two spies bargained for 
an early breakfast, and also for some roast beef and 
brandy to carrv with them, so tliat they need not be 
delayed on the road ; and at the first breaking of day. 



224 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

Monday morning, they took leave of toiy Jones and 
his little tavern. Instead of the usual road to Boston 
through Main street, they crossed the common, went 
down Front street, and took the narrovv^ and unfre- 
quented road by the side of Pine meadow and over 
the hill where is novv^ the deej^ cut and stone bridge of 
the Boston railroad ; and thence by the coal mine to 
the head of the pond. Passing through Shrewsbury 
about sunrise, they were somewhat startled while 
walking down the Shrewsbury hill, at the approach of 
a horseman in the rear. As he came up, he bade them 
good morning, and talked with them a few moments as 
he walked his horse by their side. The tall, straight 
form of the horseman, and the inquisitive manner in 
which his penetrating eye surveyed their persons, ex- 
cited in them the most painful apprehensions for their 
own safety. At length he bade them a courteous good 
morning, and rode off rapidly towards Marlborough. 
As soon as he was out of sight, they turned off the 
direct road, and took a cross road that carried them 
around Marlborough through Framingham ; and thus 
they returned in safety to Gen. Gage in Boston. 

That horseman w^as Col. Timothy Bigelow^ of 
Worcester, whom I have spoken of in a former chap- 



CARI.'S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 235 

ter as ^^ the patriot blacksinlth of the revolution," 
during which lie commanded the 15th regiment of 
Massachusetts troops, which was composed of Wor- 
cester county men. At the time of which I am 
writing he was a member of the Provincial Contrress, 
a member of the Committee of Correspondence, and 
of the secret political society of the town, and captain 
of the minute-men, who held themselves in readiness 
to render service to the patriot cause at a moment's 
warning. He knew that Sunday night, that those two 
strangers were at Jones's tavern ; and he knew that 
they had left at an earlv hour that Alondav morning:, 
and the road they had taken ; and mounting his horse 
he rode after them, and overtook them in Shrewsbury 
as I have already related. Confirmed in his suspi- 
cions, as to their character and the object for which 
they had visited Worcester, he rode on to Marll^orough 
to confer with the patriot citizens of that town, and 
make arrangements for their arrest and examination 
on their arrival there. They escaped arrest by turning 
off the main road. 

It was undoubtedly the intention of Gen. Gage to 
march a portion of his army to Worcester as soon as 
the spring opened ; either to destroy the military 
15 



226 carl's tour in main street. 

stores which were supposed to have been gathered 
here, or to quarter a part of his forces in the country. 
But the fatal termination of the expedition to Lexing- 
ton and Concord rendered necessary a chang-e of 
his purpose. 

This little incident of history, eighty years ago, 
made the little old Jones tavern, south of the common, 
a historic point in Worcester. It shows how vigilant 
the patriots of that day were in watching the signs of 
the times, and detecting every movement of the British 
government and its tory friends. Captain Bigelow's 
minute men were composed of sixty-five privates, one 
captain, two lieutenants, four sergeants, four corporals, 
one drummer and two fifers. The town required 
them to train half a day in each week, allowing them 
a shilling each day as compensation. But so anxious 
was Bigelow to perfect his men in drill and discipline, 
that they had met almost every day for months ; and 
when, on the 19th of April, 1775, the messenger, on a 
wdiite horse, came riding express into town, with the 
startling news that the war had begun, Bigelow and 
his men assembled at the summons of the bell ; the 
Rev. Mr. Maccarty came out of his home south of the 
common, and there, upon the grass just springing 



CARL S TOUR IX INIAIX STREET. 227 

green from the earth, in the centre of the troojDS, 

arranged hi a hollow square, he prayed for their safe 

return from the dread conflict of arms in 'which 

the}^ were about to engage. The prayer ceased ; the 

* 
drum beat ; and Bigelow and his men marched for 

Concord ; followed, two hours afterwards, by a second 
company commanded by Captain Benjamin Flagg. 
They had arrived in vSudbury, adjoining Concord, 
before they heard that the British troops had l-)een 
driyen back to Boston. They then quickened their 
march, and halted not until they had reached Cam- 
bridge. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Mr. Editor: — After viewing the common, the 
town hall, and whatever of interest the exhibition 
presented — not omitting- the caravan of peddlers — we 
walked up to what then went b}' the name of " Nobil- 
ity Hill."* Mv father pointed to a large house opposite 
the common, and informed me that "that was once 
the residence of one of the Chandlers."! He then 
showed me the " old Chandler house, " and the 
splendid farm attached to it ; and gave me a running 
account of the Chandler family. The farm and house| 
had then passed out of the ownership of the Chandlers, 
and their descendants, and was owned and occupied 
bv the late Abiel Jaques, Esq. 



*This Hill extended on the west side of Main street from Park street to a 
short distance beyond Franklin square. It much resembled Court Hill, except 
that the bank wall was continuous. 

t Where Taylor's granite building now stands. The old Chandler mansion 
was from 1S34 to 1869 the residence of Judge Ira M. Barton and his family. 

JOn the site of the Ethan Allen house beyond Wellington street. 



carl's tour IX MAIN STREET. 239 

No name was more closely and more honorably 
identified with the history of Worcester, for more than 
half a century, than that of Chandler. It is found 
scattered through the records of the town, the county, 
and the state, from near the time of the first settlement 
of the town to the revolution, v.dien it lost its prestige 
in consequence of its possessors having taken the royal 
side in that great contest of the people for nationality. 
It was natural, perhaps, that they should be found 
loval supporters of the British crown, inasmuch as 
thev had held various important offices in the provin- 
cial government, and been honored with its confidence 
as well as w^ith its patronage. 

Among the early settlers of the town of Roxbury, 
there was a William Chandler who came over from 
England and purchased an estate there, and was ad- 
mitted to the rights and privileges of a freeman. But 
he did not live long to enjoy them. He died, and 
left his estate to his son, John, who continued to 
occupy it for a period of forty-five years alter the death 
of his father, when, in i6S6, he made up a company 
from Roxbury and the vicinity, and emigrated to 
Woodstock, now a part of Connecticut, but at that 
time, wnth Mendon, Grafton, Uxbridge, Sutton, and 



330 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

Sturbridge, a part of our county of Suffolk. He was 
evidently a man of mind and of energy of character ; 
and, in those puritan times, distinguished for his dev^o- 
tion to the church. By him and his associates a 
church was formed in Woodstock, and he was desig- 
nated as one of the deacons — an office in those days of 
much greater significance, power and influence than 
it now is or has been in later times. The maiden 
name of the deaconess was Douglas ; and after their 
removal to Woodstock, she became the mother of 
little John Chandler ; whose boyhood was passed in 
the wilds of Woodstock, with few advantages for edu- 
cation beyond the teachings he received from his 
mother and father. The country was new, and in an 
unsettled condition ; the Indian tribes, set on by the 
French settlers in Canada, made frequent onsets upon 
the white settlements ; and in this emergency the 
government authorized the employment of troops to 
guard the frontiers. Young John Chandler had then 
reached manhood, and with the bravery of a true 
soldier he raised a company of " scouts," and was 
commissioned as their commander. He was soon 
promoted to the post of major, and his brother made 
captain. Worcester, Leicester, and Rutland were 



carl's tour in main street. 231 

the posts which they niahily occupied and defended. 
With so much zeal did he serve the government, 
that he was made, a magistrate, in which capacity 
he exhibited so much abihty, capacity, tact, and 
knowledge of law, that when Worcester county was 
incorporated, in 1731, the governor appointed John 
Chandler, of Woodstock, chief justice of the court of 
common pleas and general sessions, and also the first 
judge of probate in the county. The first probate 
court was held in July, in the meeting house ; and in 
the month following, the first term of the common 
pleas was held also in the meeting house, his honor 
chief justice Chandler being in attendance for that 
purpose ; and the occasion being considered of suffi- 
cient importance to be celebrated with appropriate 
exercises, a clergyman from Lancaster, by the name 
of Prentice, preached a sermon, and there were other 
appropriate exercises. At one time Cliandler repre- 
sented Woodstock in the general court ; and he was 
also a member of the governor's council. 

When his honor, chief justice and judge of pro- 
bate. Chandler, came from Woodstock to open the 
courts in ^731, he brought with him his son John, 
and gave him the place of clerk of the courts. And 



232 carl's tour in main street. 

as it was necessary that the office sliould be kept in 
Worcester, clerk Chandler took up his residence here. 
At the same time he received the appointment of first 
register of probate for the county. He was also regis- 
ter of the deeds ; an office which he could fill without 
inconvenience, at a time when the deeds of real estate 
to be put upon record were companitively few in 
number. For several years he represented the town 
in the genei'al court ; and on the death of his father in 
1743, he succeeded him as judge of the court of com- 
mon pleas and judge of probate ; and, if I am not 
misiriformed, he was sherirT of the county at the time 
of his death in 1763. His wife vv^as a Gardner, from 
New York. And they had a son John and another 
by the name of Gardner, who was captain of a com- 
pany at the time of the French wars ; and I believe he 
succeeded to the office of sheriff on the death of his 
father. The revolution was approaching, and sheriff 
Chandler found himself involved in serious difficulties. 
In the early part of the year 1774, the sheriff had pre- 
sented to Gen. Gage a complimentary address from 
the tory judges of Worcester, congratulating him on 
his appointment as governor of the province. vShortly 
aftervv'ards, the British troops in Boston went out on 



carl's tour IX MAIX STREET. 233 

the Mystic river, and took and carried off a sm;dl 
quantity of military stores ; and that set the common- 
wealth in a blaze. The town committees of corres- 
pondence in ^\'orcester county, met in Worcester, 
and took strong- groimd against the government. 
They recommended that all military officers throw 
up their commissions, and organize an independent 
militia : and when the time came for the court of 
common pleas to open its term on the first Monday 
In September, they found the court house blockaded 
by an army of six thousand men, assembled on invi- 
tation from the convention of committees, because, 
according to their declaration, parliament hud cor- 
rupted the adniinistration of justice. In the presence 
of the soldiers, the judges were compelled to sign a 
declaration that they would not attempt to perform 
anv of the duties of their office ; and thus the court 
house was closed for a period of more than tvro years, 
until the organization of a new government after the 
declaration of independence in 1776. Having thus 
disposed of the judges, the convention turned its atten- 
tion to the sheriff. Sheriff Gardner Chandler was 
sent for to avjpear l^efore that body, and there, aiter 
some sharp words, he was compelled to sign an 



334 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

acknowledgement of his sorrow that he presented the 
address to Gen. Gage, and to declare that he would do 
nothing in contravention to the wishes of the people. 
But the courts were gone, and the sheriff's occupa- 
tion was gone with them. 

In the same year, the famous protest against the 
action of the political committees — alluded to in a 
former chapter — was entered upon the records of the 
town, by the town clerk, notwithstanding the town 
refused to adopt it ; and when the record became 
known, those proceedings were had which resulted 
in a public admonition of the town clerk, and a com- 
pulsion of him to obliterate the offensive record by 
rubbincf ink all over it with his fing;er. That town 
clerk was Mr. Clark Chandler, who, as I have reason 
to believe, was a son of sheriff Gardner Chandler. 
The sheriff had also another son, Gardner L. Chand- 
ler, w4io was educated as a lawyer ; but abandoned 
his profession, and engaged in trade in Boston. The 
sheriff lived on Main street, opposite the common. 
Mr. Clark Chandler appears to have found his home an 
uncomfortable residence after hostilities had actually 
commenced ; and so, as tradition says, he fled to New- 
port, and sailed from there to Boston; thence to Halifax 



carl's tour in main street. 235 

and Canada. But faring hard wherever he went, he 
returned home to Worcester, and delivered himself up 
to the authorities, by whom he was put in prison. 
His health failed in the jail, and by the intercession of 
his mother he was discharged from confinement ; and 
permission given him to reside in Lancaster, on condi- 
tion that he w^ould not pass the boundaries of the town. 

When the provincial congress passed its act of 
177S, banishing from the country all who had gone 
over to the enemy, and forbidding their return under 
the penalty of death, it embraced the names of six 
residents of Worcester, viz : John, Rufus, and Wil- 
liam Chandler, James Putnam, Adam Walker, and 
William Paine. 

I have no means of access to the genealogical tree 
of the Chandlers ; but I believe that the proscribed 
John was a brother of sherift' Gardner, and the third 
of the name of John whose names are mingled up 
with our early history. He was said to be a man of 
note in the community, and was engaged in trade at 
the time the revolution commenced. He then lett the 
country and went to England, where his claims for 
losses were at once allowed by the British govern- 
ment, and at this d'ay help to make up the thousand 



236 carl's tour IX MAIN STREET. 

million dollars of debt which Great Britain owes 
to her subjects. While in England, he acted as a 
commissioner of the government to adjust the claims 
presented b}^ his refugee countrymen. Had he lived 
until the war was over, he would undoubtedly have 
been allowed to return liome, and regain the respect 
and esteem he had before in the place of his nativity. 
But he died in London before peace came.* Rufus 
was a lawyer, who had been but a short time at the 
bar when tlie courts were suspended ; and then he 
went to London and never came back. William 
returned after the war, and spent the rest of his days 
in Worcester. Nathaniel was another of the Chandler 
family, who was educated in the office of the cele- 
brated James Putnam. He practised law in Petersham 
until the courts were closed ; and then, taking the 
tory side of the question, he went to England, where 
he remained until the war was over. On his return 
he found all things changed ; and ]ia\ing no heart to 
resume his profession, he went into trade in Peter- 
sham ; and towards the close of his life returned to 
Worcester, where he died near the commencement of 
the present century. 

*An error. He died in London, Sept. 26, iSoo. 



carl's tour in maix street. 237 

Other Chandlers there were, of less notoriety, 
such as Thomas, and Charles, and Samuel. But the 
revolution seemed to cast a blight upon the name, 
from which it never recovered. Respectable they 
were, as my lather informed me ; but the very name 
had become so strongly identified with the torvism of 
the earlier members of the family, that no one of them 
ever reached any considerable post of eminence in the 
community. The ladies of the name I have not felt 
at liberty to present to the public ; and shall trespass 
no farther upon that delicate ground than to sav that 
one of them, Lucretia, the daughter of the last John, 
was the wife of the Rev. Dr. Bancroft. Of her I 
have but little recollection ; but she, as my father 
was wont to remark, had talent, energ\-, and force of 
character sufficient for a governor of the common- 
wealth. 

Yours, 

CARL. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Mr. Editor: — ]\Iv tour has reached its conclu- 
sion. I have presented, in its several chapters, as 
near as I have been able, a view of Main street as it 
appeared to me when I first travelled through it, and 
had my attention directed to such points as were 
prominent then, and about which was entwined a 
bright chain, (blackened in some of its links), of 
those historic associations which are as valuable to us, 
as a people, as the wealth that has come down from 
our ancestors. I have given such facts as have come 
under my observation during the score of years in 
which I have busied myself in jotting them down, in 
moments that were not absorbed by severer tasks. 
Errors I have undoubtedly made ; for all histories are 
but little better than a series of blunders. Yet it is 
my hope, that in my details of facts, and in my 



CARL S TOUR IX MAIN STREET. 239 

sketches of character, I have not done positive injus- 
tice to any of the individuals who once called this 
their Worcester, as we now call it ours. And my ob- 
ject is accomplished if I have succeeded in awakenino- 
an attachment, which ought never to die out, for the 
memories of generations over whose ashes the green 
grass annually springs, the summer flowers bloom, 
and the autumn leaves fall ; and who in their day, 
w^alked these streets as we now walk them ; cultivated 
these hills and valleys as we now cultivate them : 
bought, and sold, and acciimulated wealth, as we now 
buy, and sell, and accumulate ; read newspapers and 
books, as we now read them ; discussed and debated 
the tojDics of the day, as we now do ; reared houses, 
and stores, and school houses, and churches, as we 
now rear them ; w^ent up to the sanctuary as the men, 
and women, and children of to-day go ; and passed 
from earth, when "life's fitful fever" was over, as 
many no^v do, and as all must, to be succeeded by 
the countless generations that in long procession are 
advancing, to take, to hold, and to deliver up, the 
Worcester that will be, as the Worcester of the past 
has been delivered up by those who once held its 
destinies in their hands. 



240 CARL S TOUR IX MAIN STREET. 

Time is a great innovator. It makes £:i"eat chanofes. 
An early historian tells us that in the pleasant month 
of September, one hundred and eighty-one years ago, 
(in 1674), that philanthropic man and zealous Chris- 
tian, known as " the apostle to the Indians," the Rev. 
John Eliot, of Roxbury, visited the territory which 
is now the city of Worcester, in company with his 
historian, Mr. Gookin, who had at that time the vari- 
ous tribes of Indians, in Massachusetts, in charge as 
an agent of the government. 

Passing down through the southern portions of the 
commonwealtli, they came into the territory which is 
now Worcester, through Sutton, after a visit to the 
Indian tribe at Dudley. They found sagamore John 
and sagamore Solomon, the chiefs of the Nipmucks, 
at their residence on Pakachoag hill, where now 
stands the " College of the Holy Cross." The only 
white man among them was James Speen ; their 
teacher of Christian doctrine, and of the elements of 
the white man's learning. The scattered tribe was 
gathered together ; and there, upon the hill, in the 
open air, canopied by the blue arch of heaven, Eliot 
preached and prayed, and Speen with his Indian choir 
sung a psalm. The exercises closed by the opening 



CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 34 1 

of a court ; in which by authority of the British 
cro^vn, the two sagamores were constituted the rulers 
of the tribe. Among the powers, with which they 
were invested, was one, which, it would seem ought 
not to have been necessary in that almost pastoral age ; 
and that was the power to seize and confiscate all 
" strong drink " that might be brought among the 
tribe, to rob them of their wits, and prevent the success 
of the gospel among them. In sagamore John's rude 
house on Pakachoag hill, Eliot wrote a letter to the 
Nashaway Indians at Lancaster, in which civil power 
was conferred upon one of the tribe. 

But although there where no white settlements 
here at the time that apostle Eliot made his visit, yet 
the place had been visited twenty years before by set- 
tlers in and around Boston ; for the colony records 
inform us that at a session of the general court in May, 
1657, (one hundred and ninety-eight years ago.) a 
p-rant was made to Mr. Increase Nowell, of Charles- 
town, of a tract of land, of more than three thousand 
acres lying upon the west side of Qiiinsigamond Lake. 
But Nowell died ; and five years after that grant was 
made, the general court gave another thousand acres, 
adjoining the Nowell grant, for the relief and per- 
16 



242 carl's tour in main street. 

petiial benefit of the church in Maiden. Yet there 
was no change in the fiice of the country ; and in the 
tenth year after the grant to Nowell, the general court 
established a commission, to explore the Qiiinsiga- 
mond country, and report upon the practicability of 
a settlement being made there. The records say that 
the commissioners were Capt. Daniel Gookin, Capt. 
Edward Johnson, Samuel Andrew, and Andrew Bel- 
char, Esq. They made tlieir report in the autumn of 
1668 ; that the territory contained a good quantity of 
"chestnut tree land" and ''meadow enough for a 
small plantation, or town, of about thirty families." 
And they reported flirther, that if the Nowell and 
Maiden grants were added to the ungranted land, so 
as to embrace territory of about eight miles square, it 
would be sufficient to " supply about sixty families." 

Such was the report which the commissioners 
made to the general court, just one hundred and 
eighty-seven years ago this week, and day, (October, 
1668,) the 20th of the month, according to the old 
style of keeping time, and the 31st according to the 
new. Although two attempts had been made to effect 
a settlement here, they both failed ; and the face of the 
country retained, substantially, its primeval appear- 



CARI. S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 243 

ance for a period of forty-iivc years after the commis- 
sioners made the report that the land was sufficient 
for a town of sixty families. Then came, in 1713, in 
the autumn, the Rices and others, who made the first 
permanent settlement. Tlien commenced that history, 
of men and of things, some sketches of which, I have 
aimed to present in preceding chapters, by way of 
illustrating the character and progress of this commu- 
nity in a space of time not quite a century and a half 
in extent. Its struggles were hard. Its progress was 
slow ; so slow that at the end of half a century, not- 
withstanding Worcester had been an incorporated 
town forty-one years, and the shire of the county for 
thirty-two years, its population had reached only to 
the number of 147S. And when the colonies threw 
off their allegiance to Great Britain, in 177^5 '^ census 
was taken, and the population of the town was but 
1935. It went through the revolution, l)caring a lead- 
ing part in furnishing supplies of men and money for 
the war, and in the subsequent trials and sufferings to 
close up the war and establish the government upon 
the constitution of 17S9, and its population by the 
census of 1790, was 2095 only ; but 170 larger than it 
was fourteen years before, at the opening of the revo- 



244 CARL S TOUR IN MAIN STREET. 

lution In 1776. At the close of another period of 
forty years, in 1830, an impulse had been given to the 
growth of the town by the opening of the Blackstone 
Canal, and its population then numbered 4172 ; 1,210 
greater than at the preceding census of 1S20 ; and 
1595 more than at the census of iSio. Not long after 
the census of 1830, the power of steam began to 
develop itself in our midst ; though at the time I made 
my toiu* there was not a steam engine, of any descrip- 
tion, in Worcester ; either stationary for the driving of 
machinery, or locomotive for propelling cars. Now 
the eftects of steam are visible on every side. Then 
there were no streets west of Main street, except 
'Pleasant and Pearl ; and no houses in that quarter of 
the city, except the few that stood upon those streets. 
Grove street and the streets around Hamilton Square 
were then a pasture for cows. Tliere was no street, 
leading out of Lincoln street, east or west. All east 
of Summer street, between the old turnpike and the 
Pine meadow road, with the exception of Prospect 
street, v/as pasture and woodland. Green street had 
scarcely a house upon it ; and the plain across which 
it runs, and on which there are now numerous streets 
and a heavy population, was a cultivated field, quite 



CARI. S TOUR IN MAIN STREItT. 24^ 

down to the water's edge. On the hirge tract of land 
between Green street and Main street, south of the 
common, there wxM-e no travelled roads, and no houses 
except the fcw^ that stood upon South, (now Park,) 
street. Southbridge street, now one of the principrd 
avenues Into the citv, had not then been opened ; 
upon Main street, lietween Mower's hill and the \ 11- 
lage of New Worcester, there stood three or four farm 
houses ; and " Goat Hill," where now stands the 
spacious Oread Institute, with dwelling houses on 
every side, and its King street and Qiieen street in the 
rear, was then a pasture for sheep and cattle. 

Whether the tom-ist through Main street, twenty, 
or fifty, or a hundred years hence shall be al^le to 
report a continued progress of the city in population, , 
in riches, and in all those intellectual and moral means • 
that are the true wxalth of a people, must depend 
largely upon the liberality in sentiment and in action, 
the generosity in disposition and in manner, of those 
who now^ hold in their hands its substantial interests ; 
and can promote or retard its growth at their pleas- 
ure. That growth and that progress depend mainly 
upon the working classes, wdio should be allowed to 
reap liberally the fruits of their own industry. 



246 carl's tour in main street. 

" Let them not 
Be forced to grind the bones out of their arms 
For bread, but have some space to think and feel 
Like mora] and Immortal creatures !" 



My task is ended. My story is told. I will copy 
these lines from a noble poet; and then Hing away 
my pen. 

" Let then what hath been, be. It boots not here 
To palliate misdoings. 'T were less toil 
To build Colossus than to hew a hill 
Into a statue. Hall ! and farewell all ! " 

Yours, 

CARL. 



October Jist^ i8ss 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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